Our $25 Per Week Will Impact Wichita

I love the "garden" at Exploration Place!

Last year I blogged about Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), and the programs available in the Wichita area.  This year, take some time to check out Fiat Farm and their CSA program which is new to our area.  I found their post titled "Why Community Supported Agriculture" to be an accurate and motivating description of why a CSA subscription is a great idea.

Plus, I've added a new page to the blog called "Community Supported Agriculture."  You can find all the programs in our area on that page.  Please contact me if you know of others, as always, the pages on this site are community created pages - I need you!

While Chris and I would love to get a CSA subscription, our future is not certain enough to actually purchase one this year.  Meaning, we hope to move to a smaller community in this area, and am not sure a subscription in Wichita is a good idea for us.  (By the way, we've got a great house with an organic garden, asparagus patch, grape vine, and area for chickens on the market - just in case you know someone who is looking ;)  Rather than a CSA, this season we've pledged to spend no less than $25 per week on local foods.

Why $25?  Because of this post I wrote last year which drew a lot of attention, especially from those of you who feel guilty that you can't or don't spend more money on local foods.  The truth is, $10 per person per week will make a huge impact on the local economy, as I wrote last year.  So for our family of 2 1/2 (yes, we're considering our 1 year old a half person), we're spending $10 each locally, and I plan to blog about what we purchase.  So, if you need a little extra motivation, join the challenge with us and spend $10 on local foods each week this season...and share your purchases with me as I share mine with you!

Here's to a great local foods season!

Really? Local honey is a cure...does that really work?

"Let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food."  

-Hippocrates, father of medicine, 431 BC

At the state fair a couple years ago, a man was selling local bee pollen and honey, claiming they helped with seasonal allergies.  I didn't pay much attention to him because I hadn't dealt with seasonal allergies since I was a child, and yes, as a child I took bee pollen capsules.  They weren't "local" bee pollen capsules, we didn't know the value of the word local at that time.

Fast forward to the last couple weeks.  I've been dealing with major...MAJOR...nose problems.  Allergies.  My allergies are back.  Coupled with a deviated septum which I'm due to have repaired March 20th (no horror stories, please), I've been pretty miserable the last couple weeks.

I posted a note on my Facebook page, hoping for a cure.  Local honey...local honey...local honey.  That was the response I continued to get.  Huh, how did I miss that one?  In the (very) limited amount of research I've done, it appears that there is a lot of anecdotal evidence that allergies are alleviated by the regular intake of local honey (along with hangovers, afternoon fatigue, and anxiety). I read there is only one "official" scientific study which doesn't support the use of honey and states it has a placebo effect.  So, I have to go with anecdotal evidence but I'm really okay with that since, well, I love local honey!  And the more local the better - I gotta get those back yard bees.

How about you - anyone out there in blog land want to give me some positive anecdotal evidence that honey works for allergies?  Tell me your story.  What is the "dosage" that works, or worked, for you?  Please leave me a comment or email me personally at localfoodies@yahoo.com.

Yummy, yummy, honey in my tummy!

We're Not In Kansas Anymore

We love local food, but we also love traveling and partaking in new experiences.  Chris and I traveled to Italy three years ago and had an incredible culinary and cultural experience there.  

Here we are outside The Roman Coliseum.

In Italy, the grape vines and countryside are breathtaking.  I snapped this picture of an Italian farmer tilling his grapes.  Because I grew up on a Kansas wheat farm, I found the Italian method of weed control interesting and familiar.

As I looked through our Italy pictures I wanted to do a whole food post for you, like I did when we went to Hawaii, but that will have to wait for another time.  For now, most of this post will focus on an Italian experience we found right here in Kansas!

What I never expected is that I would harvest grapes not in Italy, but right here in my home state of Kansas.  Amazing.  Last summer we received an invitation to KMUW's Grape Harvest Gathering at Grace Hill Winery north of Wichita.  Who knew such a fun, ecotourist experience was waiting for us less than an hour from our home...and is waiting for you to experience too.

On the morning we arrived at the Grace Hill Winery there were plenty of grapes to harvest.

So our family of three got started.  We were immediately introduced to our picking tools, which I must say, made the process incredibly easy.  By sliding the stem of the grape cluster into the "v" on the tool, the two blades easily sliced it off the vine.

Once the grape cluster was sliced off the vine, it went into a large, yellow tub.  You can see a stack of them behind Chris in this picture.  Because we harvested for the entire morning, there were many, many tubs filled to the brim and ready to be made into wine.

In order to save grapes from the birds, a "cannon" is set up in the vineyard and used when needed.  Sometimes I think I need to invest in one of these for the big black birds that overtake our street in Wichita!

Once the day's harvest was complete, the group went into the event area for a lunch and wine tasting provided by the winery.

The Chambourcin Grapes we harvested that day would eventually become the "Dodging Tornadoes Silver" wine.  We got to taste this wine, and many others that the winery makes from other types
of grapes they grow.  

Tasty, very tasty.

Then we got to see some of the Chambourcin grapes we picked in their first stage
of the wine making process.

We also learned about the process which turns them into tasty wine.

It was a great experience, something I never expected to get to do, or even realized happened so close to our home.  Would you like an Italian experience right here in Kansas?  Contact Grace Hill Winery and volunteer to pick grapes for a few hours one morning.  I'm sure they would love to have the extra help, and you'll love the experience and tasting the local wine.

Not into grape harvesting?  Plan a free wine tasting of some great local wines.  Just contact the winery for more info.

Here's to more exciting local food experiences this year - Love Local Food!

&*$#@!...I Hate Peeling Hard Boiled Eggs

These impossible to peel hard boiled eggs are 

looking beaten up - but taste yummy as egg salad!

Lately we've been thoroughly enjoy egg salad sandwiches.  Hubs, the chef, does the cooking on the weekends, and most recently when I asked for this little joy he responded with, "I hate peeling hard boiled eggs."  I was a bit surprised, my husband is not the complaining type.

So, as with everything, we used the "Google machine" to look up easy ways to peel hard boiled eggs.  How do you do this?  Use old eggs...what!  There are no old eggs in our house.  We go out to the coop, grab the eggs, and use them within a short amount of time.  (Once we were out of eggs, and I got a hankering for cookies, so we went to the coop and there sat the exact number of eggs we needed.)  No, our eggs don't take time to be packaged, shipped, sit on  the supermarket shelf, travel to our house, sit in our fridge...and then get hard boiled for a breezy peeling process.  Our hens have been champion layers this winter (most likely due to the mild temperatures) and we have gotten 1-3 eggs daily all winter long.  A blessing, but to my chef, it's sometimes a curse!  Although, I think next time we may try the bicarb soda method suggested by this blog.

FYI:  Readers who are subscribed via email are not currently (and haven't for quite some time) getting updates via Feedburner.  This is a huge frustration for me, and something this techy-challenged blogger is working to figure out.  Once I've gotten the problems ironed out, and have a new system in place, I will send out a message to email subscribers to restart your subscription.  So sorry for the delay, oh, how I wish it weren't so!