Thursday, Friday pizza, Saturday, and Bob's Red Mill

Saturday Shopping List

canteloupe!
1 lb. baby lima beans
5 tomatoes
3 yellow peaches
3 white peaches
1 pint blueberries
6 onions
10 carrots
3 ears of corn
1 pint shiitake mushrooms
12-oz jar of strawberry jam
and a 16-oz iced coffee

total: $28


Thursday Shopping List

1 bunch curly kale
1 bunch mustard greens
1 bunch Swiss chard
1 quart green beans
1 pint raspberries
1 pint blackberries
4 heirloom tomatoes
1 spaghetti squash
6 ears of corn
1 loaf country white bread

total: $36

Mark has made a soup with rice, red beans, corn, onion, carrots, and cayenne pepper. Overall, it has a sweet taste, from the corn, carrots, and cayenne, and of course a hot taste.

Ordered Papa John's last night, with onions, mushrooms and black olives. I tried putting Diaya's mozzerella cheese on it, but the cheese had been in the fridge and was too cold, so it didn't really work with the pizza, which wasn't quite hot enough. I only tried that on one slice. We got that cheese for a pasta last week, and it was amazing. They have it at Fu-Wah. Daiya cheese is not a soy product. The ingredients are: Filtered water, tapioca and/or arrowroot flours, non-GMO expeller pressed canola and /or non-GMO expeller pressed safflower oil, coconut oil, pea protein, salt, vegan natural flavours, inactive yeast, vegetable glycerin, xanthan gum, citric acid (for flavor).

I forgot to stop at the Slow Rise Bakery table today for more granola. I usually only stop there if I want sweets, so today I skipped it, completely forgetting that last week I bought a lb. of delicious maple granola there and meant to get more. May have to visit the store for some granola or cereal. On the topic of cereal, I have to recommend Bob's Red Mill products (grain products). Not only because they are good, but because the owner earlier this year transferred ownership of the company to the employees. I will vote for that company with my dollars every chance I get. The people who do the work should reap the rewards.

Saturday Market in the Rain

It's raining on the farmers' market. That's different. All summer, it has rained maybe twice on the market, which I didn't realize until we were walking down to the park this morning in a light, gray, drizzly sort of rain. I know it rained at least one other Saturday morning, because I do remember clomping around the market in rain boots once, but almost every Saturday has been sunny.

We went kind of late, too. We're usually there at 10 a.m. when it opens. We didn't make it there until around 11 this morning, after cleaning the kitchen and making room for the new groceries.

Here's the list:

Lots of small white potatoes
Large bunch of broccoli
3 pints of okra!
1 quart of green beans
Lots of maroon carrots
3 bunches of kale (you'll see exactly how much in a minute)
2 bunches of leeks
2 ears of sweet corn
3 yellow onions
A small head of cabbage
6 tomatoes
5 apples of different varieties
1 loaf sourdough bread
1 loaf multi-grain bread
2 brownies

Total spent: $53.44


The theme this week was green. With okra, broccoli, green beans, and all that kale, we'll have no shortage of protein, calcium, or iron (the three magic nutrients people tend to worry they might not get if they don't eat animals).

We bought dry beans last week, so we have plenty of those. This week, we were able to stock up on green veggies and still spend the same amount of money as last week. See what I was saying? It all evens out.

We're going to get back to juicing, which we've been neglecting for weeks and weeks. We have a perfectly good Omega Juicer sitting in the kitchen taking up space. Juicing is a perfect way to get nutrition from greens, so that's why we loaded up on kale this morning. Carrots are finally here in bulk (they've been scant), including maroon carrots, which have extra nutrients, including anti-oxidants. Anything purple or blue is pretty much good news, nutritionally.

We spent quite a bit on the greens. The curly kale is $2.50 per "bunch." We got three bunches, so that was $7.50. The maroon carrots were kind of pricey too, I think they weighed in around $9, but we got a ton of them. Because of our lack of resolve regarding juicing lately, I had reservations about getting so much kale.

I'm doubting. You can see the doubt there, can't you? But that's a lot of protein, calcium, and iron on that tray, so I'm just going to calm down. Those are onions on top, there. There's also a tiny head of cabbage, for the stew, underneath. Everything else on the tray is kale.

We spent $9.25 at the Slow Rise Bakery table, for a loaf of sourdough, a loaf of multi-grain, and two brownies.

$6.59 at another table for the white potatoes, apples, and broccoli. Two bunches of leeks and a quart and a half of okra added up to $8. We were psyched to find okra, which has been scarce this summer. Okra is a staple for me.

$3.50 for tomatoes. $1 for two ears of corn (we still have two more in the fridge). $3 for a quart of green beans.

Now, here's the scary part. I still don't know how much those maroon carrots were per pound but with the carrots, all that kale, three yellow onions, and the head of cabbage, we spent $22.10 at that one table. Worth it if we juice. Wouldn't be worth it if we don't end up juicing. Therefore, yes, we must juice. But that means I'll have pictures and perhaps even video of juicing, and we're talking about maroon carrots here, remember, so it's going to be quite pretty. (At least until we mix in the green.)

Milling about in the rain, with lots of people and tents and mud, with expensive equipment on me (camera, in this case), and a pen and soggy folded-up paper in my hand as I shift things around trying not to drop anything as I record information and capture images... reminds me of being at the radio station, going out on a Saturday to cover stories, festivals, parades, talking with local vendors.

I wish I could get some of the carrots from my parents' garden. Their garden is far away in West Virginia, where they are, but my mom sent pictures of the latest haul of carrots. Oh my god. Biggest carrots I have ever seen. I mean, these are fat carrots. So much goodness in there for juicing. So many sweet carrot bites for stew.

I regret that I wasn't vegan when I lived in the country. It's great that the farmers' market is a few blocks from my apartment and that all these farmers bring their good food to the city for me to buy. All those PSA's I did promoting various farmers' markets in Pocahontas County, WV, and Highland and Bath Counties, VA, for the radio stations, and I never took full advantage of what was available. Better late than never, but don't repeat my mistake: Over on the right side of your screen, there's a link where you can go and look up local farmers' markets in your area.

I'm going to go put some things away and cook something. I don't know what I'll cook yet. I like to get out a plate and a knife, heat some oil on the stove and start cutting things up, whatever looks good. I'll start with blue potatoes and we'll go from there.

Market Day: You, Me, and $50 a Week at Clark Park (Updated)

Scrumptious. We rolled out of bed at 9:30 and went straight to the farmers' market at Clark Park (43rd & Baltimore).

Saturday Shopping List

3 lbs blue potatoes
quart of green beans
quart of fresh butter beans (Lima beans)
head of cauliflower
2 portabella caps
2 heirloom tomatoes and 5 other tomatoes
2 leeks
head of green leaf lettuce
4 yellow onions
4 ears bi-color sweet corn
4 peaches
4 Gala apples
jar of strawberry jam
1 loaf multi-grain bread
1 loaf sourdough bread
3 banana-chocolate muffins
2 brownies
catnip for the babies

Total spent: $52.03

That's a typical weekly grocery bill for us. Though we get different items each week as we run out of different things, over the months since we started shopping at the market back in April or May, the rotation has organically become staggered so that the bill usually works out about the same. The exception is when we make a drastic change in the kinds of things we're eating. When we discovered the brownies and chocolate-banana muffins from Slow Rise Bakery, for example, not to mention the half-dozen available varieties of bread (average $3/loaf), and the option of buying a giant hunk of banana sourdough bread and eating it for breakfast while you shop. Our weekly costs spiked right at that time. We got it under control (you can, after all, also have an apple for breakfast or one of the chocolate-banana muffins you are definitely going to buy anyway), and we still enjoy Slow Rise bread and a limited number of muffins each week and occasional brownies.



We shopped from seven local vendors. Here's the cost breakdown:

1. corn, $2
2. leeks, lettuce, and onions, $6.50 (and catnip, $2.50)
3. heirloom tomatoes, $2.25
4. peaches, tomatoes, and apples, $7.58
5. butter beans, blue potatoes, green beans, cauliflower, $13.20
6. portabella mushrooms and jam, $6
7. bread and chocolate, $12

We have more than enough vegetable scraps to do another batch of vegetable stock, and I still have Russet potatoes for another potato-leek soup. That's my favorite thing we've had recently. I can't believe how filling it is, but that's what you get from making your own vegetable stock and cashing in on all the nutrients in the vegetable scraps you were probably going to throw out.

The food is put away, and I want to figure out these pastry wraps and see what kinds of things I can stuff in there, maybe for lunch today.

"We're not telling you what to eat. We're telling you what you're eating."

I can't think of a better way to begin this blog than with a post about this brilliant article by Ari Soloman. There is only one sentence in it that I wouldn't have said myself if I had thought of it. That sentence is "Veganism is a philosophy." It might be. I don't know or care if it is. As described a few sentences later, here's what veganism is for me: "In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals." There you go. Simple. No need to strain the brain, just don't eat the animals.

I appreciate this article for paragraphs like this one:

There is a video making rounds on YouTube that shows a lone cow shaking in terror as she contemplates walking down the kill chute. She walks forward, then back. Animals can hear and smell the violence and death that awaits them. Their last moments are ones of abject horror and suffering. If you wouldn't condemn your dog or cat to such a fate, how can you pay for others do it to these poor animals?

There were several pages of comments to this article, but no one answered that question.

But I think the main point of the article comes next:

So. When a vegan is talking to a meat-eater about these issues, he or she is not "preaching", "trying to convert", or any such thing. We're not telling you what to eat. We're telling you what you're eating.

Since animals can't speak a language humans can understand (though I think the screams and terrified moans that fill slaughterhouses should be pretty much universal -- all living beings want to live) it's up to us to tell their stories and inform people of the suffering that goes on conveniently out of the public eye.

If, as a meat-eater, being exposed to this reality bothers you, it is not the fault of the vegan.

There it is. And I can't really add to it. It's perfect.

Hang around, because here at Campfire 30, Saturday is shopping day. That's day after tomorrow. We shop at the Clark Park Farmer's Market in West Philadelphia. It is held Saturdays 10am-3pm and Thursdays 3-7pm. We always shop for the week on Saturday and sometimes supplement with a few items picked up on Thursday. (The hours might change for winter, but the market is open year-round.) Each week, I'm going to post our shopping list complete with prices and often pictures. I will also be providing some recipes - I make them up, some are good, some are not-so-much good. Most will be illustrated.

I've only been eating a vegan diet since May of 2008. Back when I was eating animals, I couldn't imagine what vegans ate. I remember offering a girl a marshmellow at a bonfire at the WV Writer's Conference at Cedar Lakes a decade ago, and she said, "Ooooh, not on my stick." I asked her why and she explained something about gelatin and how she didn't eat anything derived from animals. Marshmellows were out? Somehow, at nineteen or twenty, that put the idea into my head that not eating animals is complicated. Now, understand: It wasn't that young writer's fault that I didn't go vegan sooner. Not at all. I couldn't wrap my head around the concept of not eating these marshmellows? I couldn't think of what people ate if they didn't eat marshmellows? (By the way, there are vegan marshmellows.) Who knows what I was thinking. I was nineteen or twenty years old. The point is, there is food besides marshmellows. Honest. And, so....

While I love the quote I used for the title of this post, it isn't really what this blog will be about. I'm not telling you what to eat. I will try to help meat-eaters see what they're eating. But mostly, I'm going to tell you what I eat.

Maybe that will help.

Cheers.