A couple of weeks ago I decided to take the plunge and buy Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall‘s Meat book, and in that way that Amazon does, it suggested I might like the River Cottage Cookbook as well — and what do you know? They were right … I now have a big fat crush on Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. I want to go live at River Cottage and raise pigs and cows and chickens and vegetables with that cute man and his crazy hair.
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Over at Wooly Pig, Heath wrote a whole post in response to this question that a reader raised in the comments, and it’s been stuck in my head for the past few days: How can you reconcile the relationship you develop with these animals with the act of slaughtering them for food? Do you own pets? I’m not trying to insult you but merely trying to understand what I, as a vegan, see as the cognitive dissonance of people like you who are intimately connected with both the raising and slaughtering of food animals. Heath wrote a great post answering…
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My friend Robert-the-painter came for dinner last night — like many painters, Robert is also a wonderful cook, and is really invested in local and organic food issues. I made country pork spareribs braised in milk with lots of garlic, thyme, rosemary, sage and a little hot pepper and lemon. Everything except the pork and the lemon was local in that dish — I’m on the list next year for one of my Milk Lady’s pigs, but for now, I’m stuck with what I can get. I also made Clothilde’s yogurt cake with the spiced cherries I put up this…
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Thanks everyone for chiming in this week — I think this has been the liveliest discussion yet here at LivingSmall and I’m just thrilled. So often, I feel like the lone crank in the wilderness bleating on about how food in boxes is terrible for you and it tastes bad. My cry of despair: Just cook something! In light of that, I thought some practical links might be an appropriate way to close out the week. Here’s a terrific site all about home cooking: Simply Recipes It looks like the kind of place where you could find a solid recipe…
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In the comments thread for yesterday’s post on frozen dinners, Maryn made a great comment about why the whole “cooking from scratch” concept might seem so overwhelming to people who are just getting started cooking real food: I think it’s really important for people who are starting to cook (or cook more, or more healthfully) to hear that the freezer can be your friend. Learning to integrate real cooking into your life seems so huge, if you’re not used to it – OMG I have to cook every dish from scratch every night for the rest of my life??? –…
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In the comments thread on Monday , the topic of frozen dinners came up. Although I relied heavily on the small-size frozen mac-and-cheese and frozen lasagnes that winter after my brother died, for the most part, the weird gumminess of frozen dinners freaks me out. Yesterday was one of those days — I had a couple of appointments over in Bozeman in the morning and then I just never really caught up. So at six, I found myself staring into the fridge wondering what I was going to eat. I didn’t want leftover lamb and white bean stew, and although…
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Things are a little hectic here at LivingSmall today — so why doesn’t everyone go over to Someday Homesteader and read about Kim’s first deer. It’s really affecting and well, since she did it by herself, without a guide like my Mighty Hunter, I’m kind of in awe.
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Because I work at home, I see a lot of TV with the sound off — Oprah had a family on a week ago or so who had a big pile of kids — sextuplets and twins? something like that. The mom was talking about her schedule and how she copes and she mentioned something about what my friend Nina calls “the witching hour” — that hour before dinner where all the kids seem to lose their minds at once. It took a while this mom-on-Oprah was saying, because she cooks “from scratch.” “You cook from scratch!?” Oprah said, as…
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When we were kids, we had dinner every Monday night with the Smiths. My mother was single and her friend Mrs. Smith’s husband was out of town on Mondays, and so we’d switch off — one week at our house, one week at theirs. It was always Garbage Dinner, meaning that Mom or Mrs. Smith used up whatever was left in the fridge. Garbage dinners were always an adventure — both my Mom and Mrs. Smith were both creative and also a little wacky — I mean, Mrs. Smith was the kind of person who went to Brazil on her…
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Over at Culinate there’s a nice piece by Zanne Miller about making bread with her daughters. What’s interesting is that it was the daughters who instigated the family bread-making, Miller herself admits to thinking that it was going to be too hard, or take too long, or be a pain. It’s a lovely piece about how it’s become part of their family routine. Now that the weather has cooled off I’ve been making bread again — mostly the no-knead, although I need to go look up the some-knead hybrid I cribbed from Nancy Silverton last week (reminds me, I need…