Grass clippings for dinner, anyone?

Every day my kitchen looks more like it belongs to some kind of health nut. There is alfalfa sprouting in the cupboard with the mugs (it has to be in the dark and there's no room anywhere else) There is sour cream culturing on the windowsill, purple sauerkraut and fermented pear chutney in the fridge and as of this evening there is a bucket of shredded silverbeet on the bench. (Actually it's balancing on the tray of newspaper wrapped free range eggs)

I was at the markets today and the silverbeet looked so glossy and crinkly I just had to get some. The few bunches I picked through all seemed to have, er, insect poo but I wasn't deterred and settled on a less toilet-y looking bunch. Once I started washing it all I found the culprit: a reasonably sized and very alive snail! blech. 

The shredded leaves have been salted to start drawing the juices out and tomorrow I will massage them and pack them into a fermenting jar. At this stage it smells like cut grass. Not entirely appetising, I might need to add some cabbage to soften it or maybe it will mellow overnight.

Away from the kitchen I have been developing a slow burning affair with sites where people give away their excess stuff: freecycle and it's upmarket sister, Tushare. It's an interesting world where a bunch of old rice bags are more in demand than a sofa. 

I have saved about a dozen of these bags because they are solid and even have a zip. I knew they had to be useful for something so when I heard about Tushare I offered the bags. They languished for a while but last night a lady from my own suburb joined the site and thought they would be perfect for her scout troop. She messaged about picking them up early this morning and I said I would put them outside. I wasn't in any kind of hurry because things usually sit out there for days but after a coffee and a shower I decided to get on with it and when I opened the door the lady was standing on the road counting houses in confusion! She was delighted to take them, stains, stray rice grains and all! Life seems utterly surreal at times.

“One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words ‘Socialism’ and ‘Communism’ draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, ‘Nature Cure’ quack, pacifist, and feminist in England.” 
― George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier

strolling back in time, modernly

once upon a time i dreamed of a semi self sufficient life. and then i realised that i, in fact we, were confined to a standard suburban life. it wasnt a bad realisation, who wants to work a veggie garden and slaughter chooks, anyway? who wants to work that hard when a trip to the supermarket will fulfill the needs of the family with regards to food and cleaning products, toiletries and innumerable trivial but urgently "necessary" consumer goods?

then i stopped working (ie for money) and i browsed the web way too much, which led to the no-poo (no shampoo) experiment, which for what it's worth, i was having some success with. then i wanted to try a hair "straightening" system and it has a matching shampoo so the no-poo experiment was ditched for the time being, in favour of the hope that compliance with the system would bring newly smooth and manageable tresses. it worked for a while. i will be working my way through the shampoo for a while.

the next stage of my stroll back in time was when i suddenly got to be excessively irritated about paying over $5 for a fairly average loaf of bread. i bought a bread maker for $70 and i use bread mixes which take no effort except for dumping the flour from a pre-measured bag into the tin with some water and a spoon of yeast. they cost $2 a loaf. the bread is as good as or better than the $5 supermarket loaf. i have yet to perfect the slicing process but i estimate i have an extra $15 a week in my pocket. for that i can deal with crooked slices.

after a brief teething period with the bread maker i was feeling pretty darn pleased with myself. making bread at home is easy, could yoghurt be just as good i wondered? enter the $20 yoghurt maker that makes a lovely smooth, thick product. i doubt that i'm saving anything on that because at around half the price of shop bought stuff, i've stopped rationing it as i once did and i reckon they are eating at least twice as much!

not only am i saving some cash but i dont have to go to the shops as often and you have to be happy with that! there is less plastic in the recycling bin and most of us are still enjoying the novelty. the kids come home from school and ask what my latest weird project is, they roll their eyes and give me a hard time so dont tell them i'm going to try my hand at yogurt cheese sometime soon, will you?

From a commercial point of view, if Christmas did not exist it would be necessary to invent it. ~Katharine Whitehorn

I am feeling particularly grinch-like right about now.

The proliferation of Christian imagery that is to be seen in society at this time bothers people who dont relate to it and I am disappointed that anything related to my faith bothers anyone else. I feel the same about that as I do about the stolen generations; that is that I have no personal responsibility for the issue but as part of the group which caused the offence I wish things were different.

I also have an enormous problem with the K mart wishing tree. People buy things (probably from K mart) and put them under the tree for an under privileged child and their motives are honorable but K mart or whichever retailer the gift is purchased from are raking in the profit from the good intentions of the populace, a populace who are already handing their hard earned to the retailers at an alarming rate. The gifts are not targeted, who knows whether there are more Barbie dolls given than girls to play with them (and yes, boys can play with Barbie if they wish but realistically most people wouldn't give Barbie to a boy) there may be too many gifts for 5 year olds and nowhere near enough for ten year olds. It's just a logistical nightmare which encourages waste.

Then there are the gift catalogues where you buy a goat in a developing nation and give a postcard featuring the goat to your intended gift recipient. Dont bother doing that for me, please! If you want to give me something for my own pleasure I will be very grateful to receive it and if you would rather give someone a goat by all means give them a goat but please dont give me the picture of the goat and pretend it's a gift for me because it's not. If you want to make a stand against the commercialism of the season I will support you all the way but giving pictures of goats (or chickens, toilets, taps or sewing machines) is the cowards way.

As a Christian it is a struggle to find a meaningful spiritual message for the season because it is so easy to get caught in the rush of parties and carolling and gift buying and turkey and ham and decorations......

So I am left with the question of how best to remember and celebrate the birth of history's greatest lover?

Reluctantly I have to say the first step would have to be giving up on the grinch.

collie goes to costco

costco opened in sydney last weekend, literally creating front page news and stopping traffic.
all reports say that it's much cheaper than the big two supermarkets, or any other australian supermarket for that matter so off we went this afternoon for a sticky beak.

here's what i bought:

• huge bag of salad $5 this was only a tiny bit more money for double the quantity i would get if buying the same thing elsewhere. it gets a tick.


• 60 pack of toilet rolls $22 the toilet paper was worse quality than i would usually get and cost less but i think i could get a similar deal in the local shops if they had a good special on.


• 3 pack of sensodyne toothpaste $20. i saved about 30% on this, even compared to the very best specials. another tick.


• 1kg strawberries $9 this time of year 1kg of strawberries would be closer to $15 but i wouldnt buy more than a $4 punnet, so on this one costco changed the economics of the whole deal.


• 2.5kg 90% lean beef mince (ground beef) $25. great price for top quality, now we will see what kind of eating it makes.


• huge bag of chips $6 this one was a request from a chip addicted daughter, normally she would get the much smaller $2 pack. i count this as a loss.


• roti, pack of 30 $10 exactly the same product at the same price i would pay locally.


• 2 big jars of moccona coffee $30 slightly cheaper than the same product on a super awesome special. a win for me.


• big jar of organic peanut butter $5 a much better product than i usually get at a slightly higher price.


• 2 gourmet baguette $7 fantastic bread that was worth the money but i wouldnt normally buy it.


• large jar of biscuits $3 pretty standard product and price, i might have saved $1 or $1.50

so, if i factor in the $60 annual membership fee, the cost of petrol to make a 90 minute return trip, the time, the crowds and the impulse buys going to costco is probably not profitable so far.

i was amazed to see how many people were buying huge trays of pastries and while i love a nice pastry i dont consider them to be something you buy in boxes of 20. it's one of those situations where the retailer has changed the economics of the purchase in their favour. who needs 20 pastries for $15 ? (or whatever the deal was) unless one happens to be hosting a big breakfast it's just too much of the wrong food.

the massive big banana bread for $16 was the same. i was dying to buy that banana bread, i could just taste it toasted and buttered and so could the girls but when in the past have i ever bought $16 worth of what is essentially cake? only for birthdays, thats when.

liam drew my attention to the possibility of extra waste which exists when people buy in bulk and dont eat the food before the due date, another pitfall to watch. he also pointed out the blank faces of many shoppers, caused by the narcotising effects of mindless consumption?

and the big test: will i be back? yes i will. i still need to justify my $60 membership and there are some great deals to be had. if i go in there with the idea that it's all a bargain i will lose big time but if i go in there with some caution and some savvy i can probably save some dosh and have a few unaccustomed luxuries. i just need to remember that "nothing is cheap if you dont want it."

if you get bored with food, you better go and play around on facebook

at a party tonight, (my sister's, if you want to know) we were talking about food and food being my favourite one of my favourite subjects, i was having a grand old time. i mentioned how crazy it is that we who live in the western world, with an embarrassment of riches, seem to be the ones who eat badly. how crazy it is that we will pay money to learn to eat less! my friend, jenny suggested that in the places where poverty is known people will make more effort to make good food. i hadn't thought about it in those terms before and was momentarily bamboozled but of course she is right. if poverty is a daily companion there is no money to spend on frivolous pursuits so it would make sense that a necessity would also be used as a creative outlet, it would mean that if there is enough money to put good food on the table it will be treated with some reverence, it will be treated as a luxury or a privilege. no poor person is going to be producing show-offy dishes that cost a fortune, they are going to do a simple thing and do it as well as possible. broadening the argument a little, i have been known to get on a soapbox about the way people i listen to every day resent paying a fair price for their everyday essentials. they want cheap food, cheap petrol, cheap clothes and cheap utilities. they want these things to be cheap so they can have more money to spend on entertainment, travel, flash cars, bigger houses and expensive hair -dos. there is nothing wrong with wanting those things, i like them too but i think that as a society we tend to make mistakes with priorities. i think that one of the reasons we eat rubbishy food (and i am not going to pretend this is a simple issue) is because we lose sight of how fundamental our food is. familiarity has bred contempt. if more of us occasionally wondered where our next meal might come from we might have a whole new attitude. we might eat more seasonally, we might eat less, we might eat more vegetables and think of creative ways to reduce waste. we might eat more like the chinese or the greeks or the italians.

He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree.

this Christmas i'm tired of the rigmarole. i'm a little tired of carols, i'm very tired of rampant consumerism, i'm tired of obligations and crowds and cards and wrapping.
i see no point in gift boxed soaps and enormous candles and Christmas earrings and reindeer antlers for cars. i see no point in giving the wrong thing, even with the best intentions.
we have here one lone tree but everything else is chaos as usual. even Chrismas feasting is failing to get much excitement from me.
as i wade through the traditions and the busyness feeling like the grinch i try to keep my spiritual eyes and ears open for deeper meaning. i know the story of the Christ child, the Messiah. i know what His coming meant for humanity. i know what it's all about but what does it mean for me? today?
it is strange that the shortest church service of the year will be Christmas day. if any day is the day for prolonged worship, Christmas would be it but instead we schedule a short service so we can rush home to family and presents and bacchanalian feasting.
even among the Christians the Christchild has made way for consumerism.....

so while the pressures of the season annoy me, while the loss of focus dismays me, as unrealistic expectations of joy and universal peace set us all up for failure it is for me to find joy, real joy and to create meaning. it is my job to teach my children that the birth of a baby two thousand years ago should not be an excuse to clutter the planet or our homes or our minds and spirits with junk.

Jesus was first a refugee, later an itinerant preacher. he was a nobody who had nothing but he changes lives yet. thats something to aspire to.

to all of my blog buddies, whether you celebrate or whether you dont, i know that you cant avoid the season so i wish you joy and peace and just enough grinchiness to make sure that the important isnt lost in the urgent.

lots of love

k

Correction

I wouldn't want to misrepresent Ms Clendinnen's views (see "On my Soapbox") so let me just say that the words "moral frugality" are hers but the ideas are mine.

Her actual words were:
People these days don’t know how to be poor. They haven’t learnt. It’s one of the advantages of being old…. I grew up in a world of what? Handed down clothes. Moral frugality. It was moral to be frugal. Therefore naturally I’m disturbed by the immense explosion of consumer goods and their distribution in all directions, and the assumption of children particularly who’ve grown up only in a period of increasing prosperity. That they have a moral right to possess them. To buy whatever mass produced piece of nonsense they need to express their individuality.

Now that seems to me to have a cascading number of consequences. One, it turns kids into the slaves of corrupt advertising agencies and immoral capitalism. But two, it sedates us from thinking through the origins of our security and prosperity.

Next time: my other favourite quotes about how to vote.

OOLF:Last night I managed to cook a dinner that everyone liked! Amazing

On my Soapbox

It seems that I can't get God out of my head right now. I'm far from being terribly righteous but I don't think I get a choice on this one!
It started with watching The Abbey, a TV show about a group of women who live for 33 days with an enclosed order of nuns.
Then I heard Ben Elton on radio discussing some of his ideas on life, including God.
Next I picked up a second hand copy of Dante's Inferno, sometimes called the fifth gospel. (after Matthew, Mark, Luke & John)
After that a doco called "the Miracles of Jesus".
Last was the Compass special where leaders from different faiths (two Archbishops, one Mufti, one Rabbi and an Atheist Historian/Anthropologist) put forward their ideas on how their faithful should vote in the forthcoming Federal election. There were no direct recommendations, but a checklist of things to consider.

There's no way I can pull it all together for one post, possibly no way I can pull it together ever, but over the next little while I might have a look at some of the ideas I'm thinking about.

The one I'll start with came from the atheist. (Inga Clendinnen) She sees a need to return to an ethos of "moral frugality". Thankyou Inga.

There has already been a lot written about this and I can't imagine how I can add to the debate but I would like to pose some questions:
Why does it take an atheist to draw attention to our overly consumeristic habits?
Where is the church on this? and why have I read about this subject in the light and ultimately meaningless fashion columns but never heard it discussed as a matter of Christian faith?
Does the church's teaching on stewardship spell it out enough?

Can I consume less?

It is a difficult area and there can be no hard and fast rules on acceptable consumption but we all have an obligation to be careful about consuming. It is not only an economic issue but an ethical one and people of faith need to be leaders on this or risk being hypocritical. Change starts with mindfulness.

OOLF: I'm off to the mall to buy something useless and take my mind off my woes :)