The organic dilemma has infested my household, and in the past several days, my obsession with a new ambition has driven me to learn more than anyone wants to know about GMO's and OMG's and the dirty dozen and the clean fifteen.... As I eat my brownie made with generic chocolate chips and poisonous flour, my head is buzzing with excitement and new ideas of how to integrate a safer diet into my cooking and baking habits. Of course, most blogs or books will suggest a gradual increase in organic and non-GMO foods in order to grow gradually into a better diet, but I can't stand that idea. I want to change immediately. I wish I could say that I am so inspired by the green movement or that I feel like I am heroically saving the existence of my grandchildren by not feeding Agnes corn injected with infertility (please do not quote me on any of this!), but really I just want a simple, all inclusive, budget friendly way to become the perfect person... I finally found the perfect book, one that tells me exactly what to do on what day of the month in what season in order to have a perfectly nutritious diet of affordably organic food. Of course this book is meatless, which poses a problem, and it is only showing up as tiny letters on my Iphone, which poses another problem, but still I am going to give it a try. Whether it is my faulty perfectionism that drives me or a selfless awareness of how eating organically will save the world...;) I do want to grow in this area, because facts are facts, and I think it is a good idea.
While I am dying to jump all in, only because I prefer to fail in a big dream than succeed in smaller steps (not the best trait but sometimes it turns out ok!), I am lucky that we have already taken a couple of leaps in this area, one buying a quarter of a cow and the other paying for a share of weekly Ohio grown vegetables, that arrive every week and depend on my diligence to keep from becoming fly food in the dumpster. Naturally, I have kept an eye out for recipes that include at least most of the vegetables that need to be eaten so that I can make up for all of the days of ignoring the big green bag in my refrigerator; and of course, thawed roast beef so I can dump all of the less than fresh rest of the vegetables in a crock pot and hope that no one can notice.
Today I made a pasta recipe that included the remainder of basil, dill, and zucchini that were rotting in, I mean filling up, my kitchen. It was awesome. And I don't say that because I am an amazing cook or a super homemaker--I'm not. I barely saved the expensive fresh produce we invested in from being added to the carrot casualties of last week. It was awesome because normally I avoid recipes that include cutting up more than an onion, and I try to stock up on recipes that include a bunch of canned, open and dump, ingredients. How can I spend the least time cooking so that I can enjoy the rest of my life and be with Agnes? But today as I watched my blender attempt to puree the basil and dill and oil and garlic, I experienced the food in a different way. I was delighted to see the green variety swirl into one healthy mess of what would be the flavor of the pasta, no dry spices or canned foods necessary. I even called for Agnes to come watch it with me. I am in no way against canned foods or dried spices or easy recipes, but I do think it is so easy to get caught up in saving time that we lose it. Today I felt a little more alive, preparing these vegetables that were a little more alive, a little better tended to when grown, a little more recently picked from the earth, and I enjoyed it. I don't know where this current organic frenzy will take me, but I am thankful that my husband and I get to do this Ohio farm thing, this summer, and that I am forced to slow down a little bit and encounter what I am actually doing.
What is the book?
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