To the Hilt

bare feet and local diets

While waiting for my cookies to bake, I've been reading There's No Plate Like Home, an article that outlines the author's experience with the 100-Mile Diet. I find this idea quite intriguing, and would love to try it myself. I'm not sure that I could manage it right now, considering that I don't think I could convince my parents to involve themselves in it, which would leave me completely on my own to attempt it. Without significant food-purchasing funds, nor a driver's license to get myself to someplace other than our usual food-purchasing places, it would be a mite bit hard. Ah well, perhaps in the future.

At the very least, the article does encourage me to begin buying more locally. I've already been buying organic or natural food products on my own, and sneaking them into our food supply. I'm the only one who actually cooks with them - although, there was a breakthrough the other day when my mother bought whole-grain spaghetti for dinner. Granted, 'twasn't organic, but at least it was made with whole-grain flour instead of white flour. It's definitely a start, especially considering that she did so without any prompting from me, and then pointed it out before she made it. (On a side note, the flavour was excellent. I've never been much of a spaghetti fan, but this was good.) Where was I? Ah, yes... I have been purchasing certain healthier goods and introducing them to our kitchen atmosphere. I am going to try to focus more on the local goods, as well, when I can. We already eat local corn. So local, in fact, that it comes from one of our own fields. A local farmer planted it and comes each morning and gets a truckload-full to take up to the farm stand on the next hill from us. We used to buy our corn from him consistently already - we enjoyed supporting a local Christian farmer, not to mention the fact that his corn is always excellent anyway - but now we can just walk down into our field and pick some. There's something satisfying about that.

I thought I'd point out this quote from the article I mentioned above:

"To me, the best sign that there is more interest in local food is that a number of young people are getting into farming now," says Pierson. "People come in with a passion for the issues, and they want to get their hands dirty."

I think that this is a very truthful statement. It certainly sums up my feeling about the whole thing. I've been hesitant to use the word passion to describe how I feel about this whole bit, but I'm afraid I'll have to. Not to mention the "get their hands dirty" part. I love dirt. It's a simple fact. I love the feel of it under my feet as I pad down the trail in the pasture. I love the crumbly feel of good black dirt in my fingers. Our antiseptic culture cannot grasp this idea. I was presented with a good example last night at my church's Teen Summit all-nighter. Carrie stated that she couldn't play in one of the activities because she hadn't had a chance to change her shoes at home and the shoes she had one weren't conducive to that sort of activity. At which point, Sondra suggested that she go barefoot. She wrinkled her nose at this idea and stated that then her feet would get dirty. Granted, Carrie is the Queen of All Things Jokish, and I don't think that she was altogether serious. She did not, however, abandon the shoes. It must needs be established that at this point I was barefoot. I've developed this habit wherein I wear flip-flops to Time Out, the church's usual monthly activity for teens and young adults (of which Teen Summit was a continuation into the night), and I have usually abandoned them to sit sullenly beneath my chair by the time we are finished singing at the very beginning. A certain percentage of the time, I end up wearing them until we finish the skits, but then I abruptly lose them.

I then roam the rest of the evening, participating in activities and games, quite entirely barefoot. It had not occurred to me how strange this might seem to some people. After all, some of the games are outdoors, and its evening, so the grass is covered in dew. Of course I would not want to wear flip-flops in wet grass for an event that might include running, you silly bean! I realized just how odd this practice might seem, when we were cleaning up the grass clippings that got tracked into the sanctuary, and Jason, the main coordinator of the Teen Summit, looked over at me while I sat in a chair with my hot cider, still barefoot (as I had been the entire night), and commented on how he did not recall ever having seen me wear normal shoes to a session of Time Out. He must not have been there in December, heheh.

Ah, it should be further noted that I survived the all-nighter without consuming any soda products. Instead, I had two cups of coffee and at least four mugs of hot cider. I had forgotten how good hot cider is. I'll have to give you a better run-up on the allnighter at a later point in time, as I have had approximately eleven hours of sleep in the last sixty hours. Eight being Thursday night, three being this afternoon. While I feel strangely vibrant at this point in time, that is sure to wear off quickly.