One week to go...
Wednesday, March 25, 2009 at 10:02PM 
One week. Seven days. That's how long we have left here in this year-long experiment of ours. What started with the four of us for four months, turned into a prolonged experiment in eating locally. Joe and Sara fought the good fight, but their jobs and their farm ultimately won out, and they bowed out of the experiment at the end of October. But Rashmi and I trucked along, with the exception to eat out every now and again to ease the difficulties of dinners at 9:30, and Friday nights where the last thing we wanted to do was to stand in the kitchen for four hours. But even with eating out every once in a while, we still haven't made a trip to the grocery store for anything more than toiletries and cooking oils. And it's been quite nice, frankly. Maybe that's why we haven't really had the time to reflect on this year ending. We've been too busy visiting farms (a blog post coming soon), starting our seedlings (mostly that's Rashmi), and thinking about our upcoming vegetable season and the arrival of fresh produce. So we haven't really been thinking about "stopping" per se.
And why would we? Case in point: tonight we went to campus to see a screening of some of my student's documentaries. We finished with the screening at 8:30 and had zero idea of what to eat. We didn't have any suitable leftovers - only shrimp and grits that we'd already eaten for lunch. So we considered a lifeline. We'll go out to the diner down the street and get a hot plate stacked with Sysco canned yams, a CAFO pork chop, maybe some previously frozen green beans swimming in oil, and a dry piece of cornbread. It looked dreary indeed. But then I remembered the half loaf of bread I baked early this week, and the tomato soup we froze back in the fall. Brush the bread with some olive oil, broil, throw on some goat cheese, serve with a hot bowl of soup, and you've got yourself a delicious week-night meal that beats canned vegetables any day. That's why it kind of shocks me that we find ourselves here at the end of this project. I guess I just don't foresee much Hamburger Helper in our future.
But what I do foresee is driving to Birmingham to buy some more Wright's Dairy milk, and tilling up another vegetable plot in our front yard. Maybe I'll do that next week. Maybe on April 1st...
Reader Comments (3)
Well, I won't congratulate you yet...still a week to go after all. But I am so glad that you stuck it out and invited the public along. We have always been gardners, but this year we're adding chickens and (hopefully) dairy goats. I hope you have inspired others!
Sadly they sold out before I could buy some for myself, but Manna is now carrying Wright's Dairy milk. Last week was the first delivery so no one was able to tell me when the new stash would land, but good news nonetheless.
You just made my day Ashley! Wright's Dairy milk just got one step closer!