Weekly Local Booty 11/9-11/15/08

The weather certainly is here today in Mid-Missouri. It is a cold, blustery day, and we have now had our first flurries of the season. Thankfully (and thanks again to whoever suggested them, I can't remember who it was and am too lazy to try to go track down the comment), the SmartWool long underwear I ordered came today, along with a nice pair of warm socks, so I am now doing a lot better than I was before. I was also excited to find out that, though the wool comes from Australia, the company is in Kansas City, Missouri, so it is almost a local business (KC is about 125 miles west of us).

Brett and I went downtown today to get our local booty for the week - he had a midterm to take at his university (for a class on international relations - fascinating), so I decided rather than going in the late part of the week (which is what I will do from here on out), I would go grocery shopping today so we could ride the bus home together. I went to three local places downtown, Uprise Bakery, The Root Cellar (a great local grocer that carries mostly Missouri grown/produced products), and The Peace Nook (a great alternative store) - we are going to be eating like kings this week!

Now, I did notice that shopping at the local stores, as opposed to the farmer's market or "regular" grocery store, is a little more expensive, but it isn't unmanageable.

In terms of J&B produced veggie booty, things are going well in some areas, not so well in others. Our One Ball Squash died (more about that in next week's monthly garden update), our tomatillo has been attacked by spider mites (we seem to have gotten rid of them on the plant, but it isn't looking so hot), and otherwise, everything else is doing pretty good, but going slow. Our salad greens are taking off nicely, the basil and spinach are coming along, and it looks like I am going to have to sow some more cilantro, chard, and kale seeds - the kitties got a hold of the nice tender green shoots.

Oh, and we also pulled out our stored mini hubbard squash, a butternut from the community garden plot, an acorn, and a delicata squash for use this week.

Enough yammering, check out our small, but very tasty load of booty from our indoor winter garden (courtesy of our container garden plants brought in for the winter):

















Three ripe serrano peppers.

Here is this week's haul from The Root Cellar. This local grub ran us around $60.















I'm going to do the best I can here with this picture. Starting from the bottom right: shiitake mushrooms, oyster mushrooms, "b-sized" potatoes, a summer squash (!!!!!), a small eggplant (!!!!!), some long hot peppers, locally produced Sunflower Savannah Hot and Smoky Tomatillo Salsa, Green Hills Harvest local milk for Brett (the jug is returned to the farm to be cleaned and refilled), a large jar of Bonne Femme Honey Farm alfalfa honey, a yellow and two green bell peppers, 2 jars of organic, sea salt added East Wind peanut butter (from an intentional community in southern Missouri), a small head of cabbage, garlic, fresh parsley, carrots, and two habaneros (one yellow!!!!!).

Here is our booty from Uprise Bakery. I don't know how much this was to be honest with you, it was less than $10.















A loaf of ciabatta for our weekly soup and bread night (aka tonight!) and a half pound of "Love Buzz" fair trade organic coffee.

And finally, our haul from The Peace Nook. I don't remember how much this cost either. It might seem odd that we just buy food without really paying a whole lot of attention to the price, and this is because we "sacrifice" in other areas (we don't go out often, don't buy a lot of stuff, or much beyond food and books really - but do not in any way feel like we are living without) and so we spend a larger portion of our income on food than many other people in this country. I feel that making sure that we have high quality, sustainably, and locally produced food is far more important to than video games, nights out, magazines, and all the other stuff there is for people spend their money on. This is our personal preference, and I do not judge others for what they chose to do with their lives or money, I am just explaining why I don't pay much attention to the cost of food. I am not made of money by any stretch of the imagination (thanks student loans!), but not owning a car (using public transportation instead), living in a very affordable neighborhood, and not really buying much are how we are able to make it all work.















Anywho, starting from the back: 2 cartons of plain hempmilk (not local, obviously), a dozen local eggs, incense (the "purple" variety, I really need to start paying more attention to things), The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein (I can't believe it has taken me this long to getting around to reading this book!), and Small is Possible: Living in A Local Economy by Lyle Estill. I will post a review of these books when I am done reading them. I have read Voluntary Simplicity and will do a review on that as soon as I can get around it. I also finished World Made By Hand but will not do a review about it. I am very touch and go with fiction, and for most of the book, I thought it was really good, solid characters, easy to read, enough context - a little too detailed in the descriptions of things like buildings, but from Kunstler, that is to be expected. But then towards about the last 50 pages of the book something happened, I don't know if it was Jim trying to wrap up "loose ends" that perhaps would have been better left "unwrapped" or what, but wow, it wasn't that great. Overall, it was a pretty good book, I just wish some of the side story lines would have just been dropped.

Anyways. In fantasy football news - we ended up getting beat bad last week in our game and are now 4-4 and second in our division. When I had looked at the roster match up late last week, things were looking pretty good for our team. Then our opponent made some moves, dropping players and adding some new ones, and a lot of our stars didn't have their best week. This week - at least so far - looks to be better than last. We have to do really well throughout the rest of the season if we hope to make it to the "playoffs", I'm really happy we even got to this point!

In football pick news, nothing has changed. Brett and I split on an even number of games and split the wins and losses. I hold a seven game lead, but we split on a lot of games this weekend - ones that could really go either way, so he may have a chance to catch up a little. Football makes Sundays one of my favorite days of the week in the winter!

Well, I'm going to go bake and start one of the books I have. Now I have to decide where to begin! Eeek!

Have a great weekend everyone!

'Til next time.