Friday 3 December 2010

No excuses for loving what you do!

I've been watching a movie - we do alot of those here - especially as the nights draw in. I don't know if you know it 'Julie and Julia' - about a girl who starts to blog about cooking her way through a famous American ladies cookbook. Alot of butter - alot of unconventional cooking (for today). I like the movie because it is about passion, cooking, life and following your dreams. Mines is to cover the world in flowers (edible ones a day at a time!) and to eat alot - I do like my food. Picture of me helping to cover the world in flowers and eating too much, a well needed rest!

A brilliant scene in the movie,  is about her cooking a lobster - having to deal with live food - for many of us is a bit scary - on whatever level - but if we eat meat/fish/poultry - we normally don't think about it - nor do we kill our own? Or do we? I don't know - but I find it hard. I think we should be eating nothing without respect (meaning food), absolutely nothing with pain, nothing wasted, nothing eaten here that is disrespected nor used as well as it could be, down to the last scrap. And, to be honest I'm not talking about all living walking around food - not just the animals in my life, those with roots, shoots and leaves. Who could disrespect food, whether it be vegetable based or anything produced by such lovely girls whether its boiling an egg they've laid or something else.......like carrots...............


I feel the same way about gardening and food - I love to cook as much as I love to garden. In fact its one of the reasons I love to garden, to be able to cook. I feel a real fraud talking about gardening and growing veggies to my class as I'm merely a gal who loves to grow and eat -  whilst I''m also cautious that I'm on a budget. Whilst money counts, which it does - we have to respect what we can actually acheive on a bit of budget. And everyone is.......so we compromise where we can. Thats why we buy reduced food etc - to be able to buy staples for us where we can, to not compromise elsewhere where we can. Part of our good life compromise!


And, speaking of which - I picked up some shallots tonight which are lovely for both - they are sold for cooking - but actually they'll be going into the gardening box - banana shallots from a national company called 'Lidl'. 79p a bag - perfect for cooking about 12 in a bag, but also perfect for growing - shallots require a decent size bulb for growing to get alot of shallots - so a decent bag of supermarket shallots will indeed grow you a lovely crop of shallots for your garden - everyone planted will give you 10 fold in return.

Now that is very good news - buying shallots at 79p to grow instead of 2.99 feels a bit more acheivable for me - that way when I cook I can have lovely ingredients which don't cost me too much.

Bon appetite!

11 comments:

  1. My sisters and I and pigs last year that went to slaughter. I don't waste one single bit of the pork and ham. It feels wrong to waste after raising them.

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  2. I agree, and in the long term we hope to keep animals for meat ....until then i buy ethical where possible but especially milk and meat , fairtrade coffee and chocolate but not always :)

    Still not sure i can do the killing personally but time will tell!

    Will get some of those shallot if the snow ever clears ,as they are great and theres actually something left once you have peeled them...have you ever grown walking onions?

    shaz

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  3. I been wanting to see Julie and Julia for a while. I'll have to see if it's in the video shop next time I'm there.

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  4. Yeah its worth a watch - I think the issue here has come to the forefront due to being given hens/cockerals from a neighbour - previously I've only ever had hens as I only want eggs - so we've debated the do we keep the boys are eat them - do we give them away or do we want to raise chickens for eating rather than eggs. I've killed crustations (lobster, prawns, crab etc) but I don't feel I'd like to eat my own hens - personal choice maybe - although I've no problem with keeping sheep or a pig for eating - then again they would need to be taken to slaughter rather than home slaughtered - so I'd only be dealing with the meat afterwards. Funny what we do want and don't want to do.

    Jo - I can always post it down to you if you drop me an email - be cheaper than a hire? (I got my copy in Lidl for 3.99)

    shaz - us too - we buy local where we can and if we can afford it - we buy fair trade etc - what are 'walking' onions? Tell me more!

    I agree FBMKW - when you know how much effort has gone into something we don't waste it do we!

    Thank you for the comments - thought I'd gone more random than normal! x

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  5. I have been reading about them on the cottage smallholders blog , its a perennial onion and they are avialable on fleabay

    will try to add link

    http://www.cottagesmallholder.com/egyptian-walking-onions-7103

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  6. Thank you shaz - I'll have a look - of course i was only saying the other day I am going to be growign far too many onions but one more won't hurt right? x

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  7. Ah I've already got them - tree onion another name for them - thank you for the link - waht a good link - loved the girl ebayer!

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  8. Had to smile when I read that you already had tree onions...

    One of the reasons I love the River Cottage recipe books and TV series is that they are passionate about using all of any animal, eating only sustainable fish species, not wasting anything. The only TV programmes I know that talk about how to use leftovers effectively! That's my kind of cooking - use everything and enjoy it.

    Don't know what I'd do in your place re eating hens. I claim I'd be fine about it and dream of having space for pigs too (I love pork in all its forms, except trotters). But not ever having had to face that dilemma in other than my dream world...

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  9. Oh now janet I've never read/looked at the river cottage book - worth a check out in the library?

    The hen thing is odd - we've eaten (when I was on the farm) our own hen - wasn't great to be honest - egg birds can be alrounders I think but they do need more food/or a different breed. I like the organic/local hens we get here - so maybe I'm better supporting that than going through the agony of producing a bird that might not be that good to eat. Not the birds fault - but I'm an eggy kinda gal - so I have hens bred for egg laying. I guess I don't have a problem with home grown meat/lamb/etc as they have to go to be slaughtered.

    I prefer the 'walking' onion name for them - brilliant way of describing it. Thank you shaz

    I'll see if the library has that book! Thank you all for the great ideas.

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  10. Thank you very much for the offer. I'll let you know if I can't get hold of it.

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  11. Hi, I liked the the movie and what a lovely post....!!
    very interesting blog to come back again and again.Keep posting.

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