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It's summertime, and the livin' is easy
July 9, 2002
On the fourth of July, we ate like pigs. In the morning we chowed down on chicken fried steaks, new potatoes, and gravy; the round steak was from Skelton's, the milk for the breading and the gravy was from Don McGehee's goats, the new potatoes were from another Okemah farmer, and the toast was from the Someplace Else bakery in our neighborhood. As if that wasn't enough cholesterol, in the evening we had roast, more new potatoes, farmer grown zuchinni and yellow squash, and a salad from our yard. As we ate that evening meal, the old song, "It's summertime, and the livin' is easy" was drifting through my brain. I said to Sean, "For people who don't go to the grocery store very often, we sure are eating good."
Three months into our experiment with local food, and we haven't spent $40 at a supermarket for agribizness foods in that 90 days. Everything we're eating except for some spices and condiments, pasta and rice is coming from farmers. We're not spending any more money, in fact we're spending less money on our household groceries while getting much better quality. And it's more convenient. In three months, I have been to a grocery store maybe four times for our household needs. How much time has that saved?
We're looking forward in the next month to some chickens from Don McGehee, and long about September our pig will be ready, so we can add bacon, sausage, ham, and pork chops to our meals, not to mention fried and baked chicken. If we can't get it from a farmer, we just generally aren't going to eat it.
The next challenge is deciding how to put up food for the winter. We'll have meat and poultry in the freezer, and as our share of Don's community supported agriculture farm come in, we expect to put away some of that for the winter. This year I think we will generally use two techniques: freezing and drying. I am about out of the spaghetti sauce I froze last March, so I will be making up a big batch of that later this month. One of the convenient local food meals I make uses Skelton's hamburger plus the frozen spaghetti sauce (which has shredded carrots, zucchini, yellow squash, plus chopped onions and mushrooms in it), 15 minutes and dinner is done, even if I've forgotten to defrost the sauce (it thaws real quickly in the pan, I chop it up with a large knife). I also need to figure out a dry storage for potatoes, and learn about making saurkraut.
I'm not surprised at the money we're saving. Think of all the things we are no longer paying for with our grocery dollars: environmental degradation, loss of top soil, animal cruelty, and lots of fossil fuel energy used for processing and transportation. The furthest any of our food travels is Skelton's beef, which comes down from the Panhandle. Some of it is as close as our front and side yards.
People often complain about summertime in Oklahoma, but this is where we live, and summertime has some wonderful things that come with it, among which is an abundance of locally produced, fresh, and nutritious food.
My grandmother, Opal Marie Cassidy, who was born east of Davidson back in territorial days, used to always tell us grandkids, "Y'all get the right eats, you hear?" That was good, down home advice, which I pass on to y'all as a Word to the Wise.
Robert Waldrop, Oklahomafood.coop web cultivator
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