BFPC

Bloomington Food Policy Council - a body working to create a Food Charter and present it to be adopted by the City and County governments. People who care about food security for all, sustainability and other delicious issues. Like.

Daily Challenge!!

Today's daily challenge is to write a wish list for the next twelve months and circle the top thing I'd like to achieve. I have to be careful with wish listing and make sure I don't go all uberlist bonkers again. I can think of a couple that are major:
1) Get my body into New Mexico or Arizona and ascertain my relocation goal.
2) Become involved in the Bloomington Food Policy Council.
3) Weight all the way down to 150 - that's about 40 more pounds.

The most likely to occur is number two, because it is pretty immediate. The other two are long term, but able to be accomplished in 12 months.

Ahhhh!

I just made some horrendously bad strawberry cupcakes. I made some before and they were so good, I decided to make some to enter in the county fair. These are seriously probably only good for the trash. I'm going to let them cool a bit and then try again, but I may get to use my day off to rest even though I may not HAVE to!

Zonked!

Between spending time with the children Friday, cooking for family reunion, driving to Lafayette, around Lafayette and back, washing some dishes, baking two cakes this morning and then group cooking for Food Not Bombs, then going to the park, I AM ZONKED. I just lay down for a little bit and it helped, but everything hurts. I plan to take some ibuprofen and hope it helps. I've planned to make cupcakes for the County Fair. I've never done the fair before, but when I learned there is a special category this year for cupcakes, and I've been making so many recipes and stuff I decided to try it.  I hope I haven't put myself out of the running by doing too much. I already took tomorrow off for the fair, but if I end up needing a recovery day it is there. I hope I can do both. I want to make my vegan strawberry cupcakes for the fair. They were SO yummy!

I could have skipped the park part today. Nicole and Charlie had been my fellow cookers and I told them I hit the wall of tired and they both would have understood if I left, but I couldn't. I enjoy serving the food and seeing the people enjoy it too much. I forgot to count today, but we had 77 burritos, there were 4 left when we were done. Most of us also ate and some people took a couple for later, but still a lot of people. There were a couple more families with toddlers there this week. Although I am saddest that they don't have food security, I'm happy to feed them.  I spent the time at the park talking to one woman named Amy who told me some of here history and why she is living at the park and shelters... She actually owns a trailer that is on a rented lot, but she had a fight with her boyfriend earlier this week and she left and let him have the trailer. She says it's mostly his stuff inside and he his worried about his possessions and he doesn't have the savvy to survive the street like she does. I wanted to tell her to go kick his ass out, but I know that's not my role. Sigh, because I really know what's best. For everybody. :)

I ain't your regular babysitter.

I've been really happy that my children are grown, and even though I love him dearly, frankly often been quite annoyed since Michael has been back the past year. So many of my peers and former school chums are grandparents, but I really just haven't felt that desire to be around children again. Then Lisa went and had a couple of babies last December. Twin babies, Cute, twin babies, cute, smart, twin babies. I'm in love.  Chloe and Zoe and gonna be my substitute grandchildren. Good thing too. John and Lisa (and C & Z) live closer than Emily, anyway!

Tonight a quick violent storm rampaged through town bringing high winds, rain and hail. At Josh & Nicole Johnson's house as they sat on the front porch half of the oak tree dropped on the porch, a big oak tree. It smashed the porch, which came crashing down on them and especially got Nicole. We were planning to cook there for Food Not Bombs tonight and that was, um postponed... I ended up going back later because N was still in the emergency room hours later and I thought the children were home alone.  It turned out their grandmother was there, but she didn't really want to be. Zoe hid in her room, because that's what 13 year old girls do best. Uriah and Willow fought over what to watch until I basically told Uriah to let her pick, then we lay down and Willow went to sleep and I let Uriah turn the show to what he wanted. I mostly snoozed with Willow. When Josh & Nicole came home after 6 or 7 hours of X-rays and CAT scans I said, I didn't feed anybody real food, I didn't make anybody brush their teeth, I didn't even make Willow go potty before she went to sleep. All I did was BE THERE.

It's Floradix, and I'm worth it!

Back in May when I was vomiting a lot I went to Karin, the chiropractor. She told me I was really anemic from not absorbing anything. She made several recommendations, one of them to try a tonic that contained a lot of iron from plant sources. I went to Bloomingfoods right away and the only bottle they had was nearly fifty dollars. I was so sad and determined I could not afford it. I went back to work, fairly upset, but didn't say anything. I finally did tell Gillian about the anemic part, but not about the tonic. Later she sent me an email that she really believed in this tonic called Floradix and she would like to buy a bottle for me. That was what Karin had recommended! I thought about it for a few minutes and then I told her about the experience in Bloomingfoods and told her I would accept her gift. She went to a different store and found a smaller bottle that was still pretty expensive, but not as much. SO, the following weeks I took a dose of Floradix whenever I felt like I could drink it without vomiting - it was too expensive to throw up! The past couple of weeks, however, there was only a little bit left in the bottle and I never felt like I should take it. I didn't know why, the vomiting was done, thank goodness, I just never took anymore, even though I felt like it would continue to help my overall nutrition and health - anemia is something I have struggled with throughout my life.

Finally yesterday it hit me. I was afraid to drink the last little bit because I was afraid I would never have it again! I was doing the same thing Heather had done with a bottle of expensive "Happy" body wash that had half an ounce left in it and sat in her tub for at least months, maybe years. So yesterday I went to Bloomingfoods and did it! I bought a new bottle of Floradix! This time they had the smaller bottle, so I only had to invest $27. I came home and took a dose out of the old bottle and that is exactly what had been left in there, one dose. I need to remember that I am worth it, my health is worth it, and investing in good food, healthy activity and Floradix is something I deserve.

So tired So satisfied...

... even though I burned the chocolate pudding and it will take weeks of baking soda scrubs to get the char off the bottoms of not one, but TWO pans!

Food Not Bombs had a lot of eggplant donated this week, also potatoes, peppers, onions, zucchini, yellow squash, tomatoes, seitan, and tofu. We couldn't all manage to get together to cook until today. I got up early and burned the pudding, then I made a fruit salad with peaches, apples, grapes, and I squeezed all the citrus on it; 1 grapefruit, two limes, and four lemons, then I got fresh mint from the garden and did a rough chop and mixed it in. After everybody came we chopped and chopped (Oh, I guess I did the eggplant before they came) we mixed everything together in our NEW pans and added some olive oil, salt, pepper, and dried Italian seasoning. In one pan we added chopped seitan and in one pan we did crumbled tofu. We threw those all in the oven. Michael and Shaun made a tomato salad with all the grape tomatoes and rosemary and thyme from the garden.  We had also been given a bunch of single serving yogurts of different flavors, so Stephanie mixed those all together in a bowl. So we had two chafing pans of hot veggie food, one 8 qt. size more than half full of fruit and about a quart of yogurt, and a mixing bowl of tomato salad. We had OVER FIFTY people in the park eat, plus us. Most of our friends in the park are men, but there were also at least seven single women and one mother with a toddler.

The pudding had been made with donated soy milk I felt kind of bad about wasting it, but I learned some more about cooking it in a large quantity and if we get some again I will be able to do better. I want to be a good steward of the resources we are given. We had  a $100 donation and I bought two food quality plastic containers with lids and 3 large mixing/serving bowls and a 5 gal water cooler at an auction a couple of weeks ago. I ordered two complete chafing pan sets and we made and served the hot food today out of one of the actual pans and one of the steam pans from one of the sets, and used both lids.  I think we will actually need a couple more of these if we continue to get large crowds. We hope to be able to continue even after it is cold, and that is when we will use the full set up with flames to keep them warm.

It just occurred to me that we will have to make sure to keep the fuel watched, some of those guys will drink ANYTHING with alcohol, especially on Sunday when even if they have money, they can't get booze. I remember I was in town on Super Bowl Sunday and one of the guys was drinking mouth wash. Yuck.

Part of the time we were serving a PIT BULL parked itself under the table on my foot. I was nervous as hell, but I just kept on serving... I was pretty careful to not move my foot! That is one of the things about going to the park that bothers and scares me, the dogs, and they tend to let them run loose. Even if there is a leash on a dog, it gets dropped and the dog runs around trailing the leash. There are at least three dogs who they and their people are usually in the park when I go.

I am so tired. I need to go to bed, but I don't want to go too early or I will wake up in the night. I still have some pans to wash. I brought them home (ugh). We talked about will we store them here or ??? Plus a lot of the young ones are going up to Chicago next weekend for a Big Queer Dance Party and even thugh I am going to Lafayette on Saturday, I will be back on Sunday.

Okay, the end. By the time I mess around a little bit more, wash another pan, fill my medicine doses for the week and shower it will be late enough to go to bed!

argh

My left foot keeps feeling like a cramp on the outside edge, but it's NOT a cramp and I don't like it.

And really

doing Food Not Bombs with the young people is fun, but some of the hippies are smellin' better to me, if you know what I mean!  ;)

Cooking!

I made vegan banana bread this morning and for the first time ever put chocolate chips in one loaf (but they're not vegan). Then I tried a new recipe for individual baked oatmeals that I plan to sell at a Farmer's Market. Now I've got an enchilada casserole in the oven. I thought Michael had agreed to cheese, but he hadn't and he's a little disgruntled. That's what happens when you mumble!

OCD

I wouldn't shake my massage therapist's hand today, but I shook Dennis's at People's Park because I am afraid of hurting his feelings.