Recovering. Thursday, February 26, 2009

I'm finally getting back into my regular schedule and it feels SO GOOD.

Here are a couple of things that I am ridiculously proud of at the moment:

I made a southern FEAST for Mardi Gras. Vegetarian crockpot gumbo and King Cake, baby included (recipes are linked). I have to admit that I've never actually consumed either dish, so my judgement of them might be a bit skewed. I thought the gumbo was pretty tasty but a little bland, and the cake was less cakey than I expected when I knew it just by name. Whatever, it was all delicious and made from scratch.


I'm slowly making a garden on our back deck! The deck is north facing, thus hard to grow things on, but I think it's all going to turn out ok. One corner gets direct sunlight for at least 3-4 hours every morning, so right now I have three planters on the railing of that corner. I have pansies in one (with enough room for lettuce when Bethany Nursery gets seedlings), one for spinach, and one for sugar peas (complete with awesome bamboo trellis made by yours truly!). Below you can see the spinach and peas:
This is all part of the back to basics trend in my life aka the 'from scratch' revolution - my own attempt as going as back to basics as possible while still sort of functioning in normal society. I'm doing things a little at a time: right now it's homemade bread and granola bars and trying to grow stuff on my porch. I know a girl in Vancouver, BC who hasn't used shampoo in 7 months and once my shampoo is gone I might try to follow in her footsteps, or start using baking soda. I'm a little disappointed in myself that I bought new plastic planters, but I needed something that would stay on the railing. I'll be able to reuse them (even though they'll look a little goofy if my next place doesn't have railings), so that's a plus. For the most part, though, I'm trying to get everything I need at Goodwill instead of buying it new.

Goddamn it, I'm becoming my parents, one hippy resolution at a time.



On a separate but related note, I'm giving up meat for Lent. I'm hoping that it will be the kickstart I need to be a vegetarian again. At least, a mostly vegetarian. I've decided that I will make exception for small farm, local, organic meat, once Lent is over, since I cannot deny that meat is delicious.

And maybe next year I'll give up high-fructose corn syrup? Or is that too monumental a task for even the most idealistic of Americans?