A Schizophrenic Diet

One day after work in December, after eating the last of the stored lettuce from Barefoot Gardens, I had to face the reality that, except for butternut squash, a braid of garlic and a bunch of carrots still under the frozen ground in the yard, we were out of local produce. We went to Hy-vee.

These are the fresh things I bought that I had managed to avoid for 6 months:

-Avocados from Mexico
-Blueberries from Argentina (I justified this by reasoning that my kids need color in their diet)
-"Organic," but not-so-firm Broccoli (California?)
-Slimy "organic" Spinach, which I will not buy again (California)
-"Organic" (if not really environmentally friendly or humane) bananas from I don't know where
-"Organic" potatoes that are actually in pretty decent shape for having travelled form CA.

We're eating a schizophrenic diet--local, fresh, firm, and full or flavor for the 6 warmer months and then travel weary, wilted, wrinkled, and bland for the 6 colder months.

One nice exception to this schizophrenic diet is the carrot salad that brighted our Christmas dinner. The ground thawed one day in December and we harvested several pounds of gnarly, but delicious, carrots. Well, there are more exceptions. Tom made a spectacular stuffing with BFG butternut squash and Scott Worl's dried corn that I had ground in the Nutrimill. I made cookies with Allison Farm wheat. We ordered a Ham from Grassrun Farm in Iowa.

Still, I'm not looking forward to the next 4 months of grocery store food.

Creativity from boredom

The best dishes I cook are on days when I'm uninspired and bored with the idea of making dinner. Somewhere out of that boredom, I look around and find a vegetable that needs to be eaten and I cook something good up. This week it was diced butternut squashed sauteed and cooked in short-grain brown rice and garnished with salsa and avocado. Mmm Mmm Mmmmmm I'm almost want to turn around and again right away.

Recipe: Easier and Better than a box Brownies

BROWNIES

Time: 40 minutes

3 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped into several pieces
8 tablespoons (1 stick) salted or unsalted butter, more for greasing pan
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
Pinch salt if you use unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract, optional.

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Combine chocolate and butter in a small saucepan over very low heat, stirring occasionally. Alternatively, microwave on 1% power one or two minutes at a time until melted. When chocolate is just about melted, remove from heat, and continue to stir until mixture is smooth. Meanwhile, grease an 8-inch-square baking pan. If you like, also line it with waxed or parchment paper and grease that.

2. Stir in sugar. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Add flour (and salt and vanilla if you are using them), and stir to incorporate. Stop stirring when no traces of flour remain.

3. Pour into pan, and bake 20 to 30 minutes, or until set and barely firm in the middle. Cool on a rack before cutting.

Yield: About 1 dozen brownies.

3 local dishes

Yesterday after I got home for teaching, office hours, emails, research, etc., I made some soup with backyard carrots, local potatoes, and beef broth from local, grass-fed cows. We ate that with bread from the farmer's market.

While the soup was simmering I milled some wheat from the WIU Allison organic farm and added it to local milk to make overnight batter for waffles. The next morning I added local eggs to the batter and served the waffles with local honey.

Back to after dinner last night, we made brownies with butter, unsweetened chocolate, a little of the flour I had milled for the waffles, local eggs, and sugar. I can't get unsalted butter or chocolate locally, so only the eggs and flour were local. These treats are the essence of brownies--so much better and healthier than box brownies, and not any more difficult to make.

De-evolution of a species

The current diet of foods that do not involve cooking from scratch at home is causing the de-evolution of a nation: U.S. Americans are getting shorter, fatter, sicker, and are projected to live shorter lives. We are experiencing epidemics of diseases such as type 2 diabetes and these diseases are founder at younger ages that before. Because of our modern diet of packaged foods, we are the freaks of history.

Back to the Kitchen with the local foods movement: a Third Wave Feminist Perspective

We are now in an era of diet-caused epidemics that are starting to shorten the length and lower the quality of life. If feminist theory is to be relevant in an era of human health crisis, feminists must reconcile theory with the garden and kitchen. Current feminist theory is wrought with contradictions with regard to good food and human health. The solutions to these contradictions involve self-sufficiency, women’s history, nutrition science, and dreams for future generations of women.

No, chocolate is not local, but

No, the chocolate I eat is not locally grown, but I couldn't get it locally if I tried. It's not like, for example, driving out east to the grocery store for bread shipped in from who-knows-where and made with hydrogenated oil and high fructose corn syrup when I could walk a few blocks up the street to the Winter Market Wednesday afternoon and get a freshly-made loaf in which the wheat has been locally ground and that doesn't contain preservatives, hydrogenated oil or HFC. And buying chocolate imported chocolate (all chocolate in this country is imported because we can't grow cacao here) is not like driving out East to the grocery store to get apples when the Winter Market has local apples that have not been doused in chemicals and have not been sitting in a truck, boat, or plane for a journey of several thousand miles.

If I could buy chocolate locally, I would, but that is not an option, and of course, giving it up seems to be too much of a sacrifice.

Chocolate

I just had lunch with Lori because it's more civilized than eating in front of my computer. Now I'm back in my office to eat my chocolate.

I have several courses of chocolate after lunch, going from least to most sweet. First I had a Le Petit Ecolier butter biscuit topped with dark chocolate (45% cocoa content), and now I've moved on to the Le Petit Ecolier butter biscuit topped with milk chocolate (sweeter), and then I'm going to have just a piece of chocolate with no butter biscuit. This will probably be a piece of Green and Black's Organic Milk Chocolate (37%) with Almonds.

After that I should brush my teeth so as not to eat more chocolate.

Is the military by definition a rigidly masculine institution?

Many institutions in our country have been defined by a masculine construction--the presidency, education, etc. But in most of these institutions, leeway exists for women to enter these fields, and , if they wish, to form new, less masculine, definitions of these institutions. But I wonder if the military is so staunchly masculine, that it would be impossible, in the case of a gender-neutral draft, for women to have equality within the military. Ann Althouse has made arguments that would coincide with this idea.

If the military is inflexibly defined by a masculine construction, then women would , in the case of a draft, be the "sex slaves" of the military.

Obama says draft women

If our country must instigate a draft, Barak Obama has said he supports having women register for it.

My response is don't instigate wars and don't draft anyone (men or women), but if we find ourselves in a situation in which a draft is necessary, then it should be gender-neutral.

Ana Marie Cox (Wonkette) and Ann Althouse debated this issue on the NYTimes website.
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2008/10/17/opinion/1194825584629/bloggingheads-a-female-draft.html

Ann Althouse makes some strong, respectable feminist arguments against drafting women, but in the end, I side with Ana Marie Cox--that women should be included in a draft. I only wish Ana Marie Cox had argued her case better. The responsibilities in a draft would have to be equal, so that women were not disproportionately filling in lower-level jobs like kitchen work. Let qualified women in the infantry (if that's the kind of war we would have).

Women should not be protected from the front lines of war, and men should not be expected to deal with war more easily than women.

Self Satire

I'm crafting an internet image of myself. I picked this picture because I think it's just slightly funny, cool, and a little cynical. I like the wrinkled eyebrows in the pic. that imply something like, "What the hell are you talking about?" In my non-internet life, I don't think I ever give this look to anyone but myself.

That's my new internet image, but I don't think I go around looking cool like that. Some days I pull off being cool--I have a few cool outfits, but can't afford to dress "cool" everyday. And even if I could, it would be very time consuming to create that kind of wardrobe. So I have to be cool some other way. I try to be wry in the things I say, even though I can't define that word, but I do think I know what it means. On a lucky day, I say something wry to my students and they get it, but usually I don't think they think I'm "cool" and they probably don't use that word anyway.

So what about today when I'm wearing what looks like a little old lady from Lake Wobegan sweater and my hair is exhibiting some funky caliks (apparently, that word's spelled wrong)? I will not use a picture of myself today for my new internet image.

Not-so-cheeri-Os

I picked up off the floor 4 not-so-cheeri-Os that had been partially soaked in local raw milk and then went to write a feminist criticism of nutrition science.

The Bathroom

Mathew's leather sandals are in the tub.
On the floor near the toilet is a book entitled "National Women's History Musuem" (how did it get there?)
On the floor next to the scale is a paper crown.
Three bars of deoderant are on the contertop supposedly because Mathew can't reach them there.
Dye from wet construction paper is dripping down the window frame.
A pair of short overalls that I won't wear until next summer is hanging on a hook.
Many other things like empty shampoo bottles are visible.

Parade Candy and Cupcakes

Today Maya's diet consisted of parade candy and cupcakes--the cheap kind of each, with lots of hydrogenated oil and high fructose corn syrup. None of this junk food came from me. It takes a village to give children cavities and diabetes.

Daily local food from rural Illinois

Last year it seemed remarkable that I could go the whole day eating mostly local foods. This year, I take it for granted. Below is what I ate today. The ratio of local to non-local foods is representative of how we eat every day. Everything is local (less than an hour from Macomb, Il) unless stated:

BREAKFAST:
-Milk from Ruhl's Ranch
-Egg from Ann Runner
-Pumpkin scones made with Ruhl's Ranch cream and local pumpkin (flour not local, but it often is)

LUNCH:
-Salad with lettuce, shallots, and apple from Barefoot Gardens. (There was some Vermont cheese on it and some olive oil from Italy)
-Hot Chocolate with local milk. (Coacoa not local)
2 squares Organic milk chocolate with almonds (not local)

DINNER
-Cabbage slaw with veggies from local food at the Macomb Farmer's Market (believe it or not, some of the goods sold at the Macomb FM are not local, but I don't patronize them). Slaw also had carrots from our backyard. (There was some Canola oil on it from I-don't-know where)
-Cod filets (no, NOT local), but obtained through Macomb Munchers, which is a food co-op
-bread from Twelve Baskets at the Macomb FM and made with 100% whole wheat flour that was locally milled

A window

How much is a windowed office worth? Would you take a pay cut to get an office with a window?

Or write a novel

Take Job A, Job B, or, write a novel. I'd write what I want to read--that professional mothers in the Midwest don't make the same decisions that those on the coasts do. (Judith Warner and Meg Wolitzer, I beg to differ with you.)

And somewhere in that novel is the shame I feel when I project my white, middle class heterosexual mother and wife world view onto others and they call me on it. Go easy on me-- after all, didn't I spend to years living in a home for abandoned girls in Argentina so I could experience what it's like to be the "outsider?"

This thing called a career

Do I apply for the good job that raises my salary a lot NOW, or the better job that would raise my salary by the same amount, but that I may not get and would not even start until two years from now? (I can't do both.)

If you could teach Spanish, why would you choose Women's Studies?

Why am I teaching Women's Studies and what is Women's Studies? Do people who teach History, Literature, Math or Sociology doubt why they do what they do? (No.) I do it because people want this information and they will not get it any where else.

I'm not "puttin on an accent"

Yesterday in "Introduction to Feminist Theory" I was explaining an essay by Mary Church Terrell that dealt with racism between Black and White women. One of my students kept smiling and I asked her what was making her smile. After some prodding on my part, she said, "well, it's just that when you talk about southern racism you put on a southern accent."
"That's because I am Southern" I said. Then the student and I realized we are both from Arkansas. Ya'll have a good day.