Missy's Homestead: Heirloom Expo

Heirloom Expo

This year has been full of festivals!  Not only is summer time around the country a festival time but that certainly is the case here in Sonoma County.  (Food festivals, Wine festivals, Beer festivals, etc. etc. etc.) 

Last weekend I chatted briefly about the Fermentation Festival and this week I wanted to quickly mention the Heirloom Festival that was held in Santa Rosa.  Last spring when I bought all my seeds from the heirloom seed bank down in Petaluma, they gave me a little flyer for this Heirloom festival that they help sponsor every year.  I took that little flyer and had it on my fridge since February.   This festival is basically a small fair-like event that  gets set up at the fairgrounds each year.  The farms from around the surrounding areas come and showcase their products, along with other local artisans and people who are into farming from all over the country.  Not only could you try locally sourced, organic cheese, but you could also taste heirloom watermelons from all over the world.  They showcase veggies from all types for regions and had a couple great seminars on garden growing, chicken raising, cooking with your produce, etc.  Basically it was a homesteaders paradise.  I spent an afternoon just wandering around and checking out the produce and the booths.  I was also able to see some adorable animals that were  part of the local and sustainable movements, and listen to a gentleman speak on the importance of old variety Turkeys.   I have to say that there were a lot of great booths (to buy products) and a bunch of delicious food and drink vendors to choose from.  However, over all I liked the produce displays the best.  Seeing veggies that I didn't even know existed before was thrilling.  It really inspired me to find some old world seeds and try my had at those next year when I need to go get my seeds for the year.  We will see how I do.  I was most interested in the heirloom watermelons and tomatoes.  Hopefully when I return to the seed bank next year I will be able to find those seeds that I am looking for...maybe I should start now.

Until next time...Consume More.  Buy Less.  Occasionally go to festivals.

missy 

http://www.theheirloomexpo.com/

Missy's Homestead: Farm to Fermentation Festival

Take a tour!

Farm to Fermentation Festival




This past weekend my friend put on a fabulous festival out in the middle of nowhere on a beautiful farm called Tara Firma.  The festival was call Farm to Fermentation and it was all about fermentables.  From Sauerkraut, Kimchi, Beer, Cheese, Wine, Kombucha, pickles etc. etc.

Schedule for the day!

There were some other local vendors there as well doing chocolate, sandwiches etc. but mostly the festival was made up of tasting booths where you walked around and tried all of the delicious food that people had.  We had little tasting glasses and got to go around and try as many products as we wanted, all while eating with bamboo or recycled utensils.    There were some that were absolutely amazing. There were a few that were pretty stinky and not as yummy but over all most of the items I tried from the vendors were delicious.  I wanted to buy a jar or everything.  

Kimchi Seminar

Another part of the festival was that there were a bunch of interesting seminars so that you could learn the basics of making the items yourself.  They had a seminar for just about every classic fermentable item that was featured at the festival.  I ended up attending two that were great.  Basic Kimchi making and Basic Pickling. 

Tastings!

This Place was amazing!

Was and still am not a big fan of Tempeh.  Sorry Soybeans.

 I have made pickles in the past and they were so delicious but I have never made any cabbage based fermentable.  Kimchi I think would be a fun one to do.  It does smell kinda funny when you make it but it does taste pretty good in the end.  The other big draw for the festival was the farm where the festival was.  Located in nowhersville Petaluma in the dry hills this adorable farm is the love child of some Marin County financial people who decided that there was not enough sustainable farming and meat raising going on in their area.  

Pigs!

Chickens! Finding the Eggs

More Chickens!

So they sold everything they owned and bought a farm raising pigs, cows and chickens in a happy environment.  They do a pretty cool Meat CSA program that allows you to buy a certain share of their local farm raised meat.  Plus they sometimes do seasonal veggies, fruit and eggs.   They were giving tours all day of their farm and sharing their sustainable philosophies.  It was a very interesting tour and I would be very interested in joining one of the meat CSA's.  I could get fresh and local meat from a place where I knew exactly how they treated and cared for the animals.  

Tasting Glass!

Local Apples

Checking out cheese under the Microscope. 

By the end of the afternoon both Greg and myself felt like we were armed with the info we needed to move more into the fermentable lifestyle.  We already make, drink and work in beer.  But maybe now I could make some delicious fermentable cabbage to go onto one of my hotdogs at the next cookout...or maybe I will make another batch of pickles.  I really have been wanting to do that this fall. Maybe that will be in a blog post here in a couple weeks.  I just need to find some inexpensive jars!!!

After the 300 or so people that passed through the festival gates at the end of the day the crew who put it together only had one bag of trash.  Everything else was put into the compost piles or sent to be recycled.  Very Impressive.

I know I will look forward to this event every year.

Until next time...Buy More, Consume Less....Possibly ferment a cabbage.

Missy

http://www.tarafirmafarms.com/

http://www.farmtofermentation.com/

Amanda’s First Beach Clean Up

Mission accomplished! I finally partook in my first beach clean up, and it was a success! I don’t think I could have asked for a more gorgeous day in NYC. The sun was shining, there was a light breeze, it wasn’t hot or cold, but despite the beautiful weather, there was A LOT of trash to be picked up!

I arrived at Brooklyn Bridge Park at 1:00pm, which was low tide. There were many other friendly faces of individuals from all walks of life ready and eager to pitch in. Our leader, Sarah, provided us with large trash bags, gloves, tools for picking up the garbage, and waders (those funny looking waterproof pants held up with straps that have shoes attached) for those of us daring enough to venture out into the water. We were also supplied with clipboards and checklists, provided by the Ocean Conservancy, to document the items we collected. This data is crucial to the Conservancy to monitor not only how much trash is being collected, but also what kinds are more prevalent in what areas, and other trends.

At first glance, the beach looked fairly clean to me. However, once I really started looking around, I felt like I wasn’t traveling very far very fast because there were so many small things hidden in the rocks. It was kind of like looking at the stars. Once you look at one really hard, you notice so many more around it. Except, of course, this was trash.

The vast majority of what I picked consisted of cigarette butts and plastic items such as straws, water bottle caps, and pieces of food packaging. There were a lot of glass bottle caps as well. In addition, other cleaners found a tire, fishing net, plastic bags, glass, etc.

I concluded that if we can all just stop smoking and using plastic, the impact that these small changes would have on the environment would be astonishing.

I was very inspired to see how eager everyone was to help out. There was an immediate sense of community, and it was very enjoyable because everyone who was there sincerely wanted to be. Everyone was working hard to clean as much as they could, and by the number and size of trash bags that were piled at the end of the day, I was shocked at how much trash everyone collected! This was a great bonus to the wedding that crashed our clean up. I’m sure they were very thankful for the newly cleaned shore to have as a backdrop for their ceremony.

I left the beautiful Brooklyn Beach Park clean up with a warm fuzzy feeling (and no it wasn’t just a sunburn) because I had helped make a difference, even if it was very  small in the grand scheme of things. Looking at the beach while packing up my belonging, I noticed a visible difference. It truly is amazing what we can all accomplish together! I encourage all of you to participate in a clean up. If you aren’t by a coast, clean up a park or marsh, or anywhere there may be trash, which should be very easy to find!

I was able to get some footage of the clean up, so stayed tuned for the video!

For more info, check out the Ocean Conservancy, or head to the Brooklyn Bridge Park's website. Here's a link to clean up sites in NYC too: http://www.alsnyc.org/

Missy's Homestead...BINGO!

Missy's Homestead...BINGO!!


Now that I live closer to my family I try to get over and see them as often as I can.  My grandparents lived for most of my life up in the very northern part of California, where they had a fishing resort.  I would visit them every summer and have the best time cleaning cabins, going fishing, swimming in the pool, you name it i did it during my summers there.  It was an amazing time and a great way to grow up.  

Bingo Machine!

A couple of years ago my grandparents decided that it was time to "Officially" retire and move down a little closer to the family.  They sold their resort and moved about 4 hours south to Sacramento.  My aunt and her family live in Sacramento and it is where my husband and I went to school and first met.  I love Sacramento.  It has and always will be like a second home to me.  I have a ton of collage friends that still live there.  I did my first professional theatre gigs there and we spent many a holiday with the family gathered in Sac since it was a halfway point for my family and my grandparents to all get together.  My grandma and grandpa are pretty social people so they didn't want to move to a place where they would be isolated from other people.  Also if you are new to a place and you want to meet friends and have a good time, living way out in the country is not always a great way to meet new friends.  Outside of downtown (About Thirty Minutes) is a retirement community where my family decided to live.  It is pretty quiet, well maintained, it has a pool and there is a post office and a grocery store around the corner.  In the middle of the 100 or so homes that are in the park there is a community center where the community has many different events for the people who live there.  They do potlucks and play cards but the best thing that they have is a BINGO night.  Several weeks ago I was visiting my grandparents and my grandmother said, "Well you can come visit, but we do have bingo tonight..."  I said YES immediately. 

BINGO!

I don't care how young or old you are BINGO is a wonderful game.  And let me tell you this group of people that my grandparents play with are serious about their BINGO.  You pay like 50cents a card and some of those little ladies play like 6 different cards.  (Pots are anywhere from 5-8 bucks a win) Not only do they play for money but they play like 10 different versions of the game.  It is not always about getting a regular bingo.  They have all kinds of different ways you can get a bingo in certain games.  It was a blast.  Unfortunately I did not win anything but I had a great time hanging out with my grandparents and their community. I even got to bring my glass of beer with me and they had snacks!  What better way to spend a Wednesday night?!?  While we were there I mention to my grandmothers friend, who in charge of the whole shindig, that if I was ever around on a Wednesday night, and they needed a bingo caller, that I would be happy to pitch in.  And what do you know....last wednesday I rolled into town and not 30 minutes after my grandmother got a call asking if I would call Bingo.  

Pic of me doing my job!

Well you bet I said yes!  I went in a few minutes early to check out the list for that night and practice dropping and calling the bingo balls from the machine (yes they have a Bingo Machine).  It was a blast!  Everyone loved me because I spoke very loudly and clearly. I can't tell you how much fun it was to call those bingo numbers for that small bunch of Seniors.  They all had a great attitude (except when I wasn't calling their numbers j/k) and overall it felt great to be sharing in my families community.  I think small acts of community service are very important.  And it felt great that I could help out and have a good time.

The game patterns we played

What types of community service do you do for your local and surrounding communities?

Well I am off to the Heirloom Vegetable Expo, more info on that coming up.

Until Next Time: Consume More, Buy Less 

(Be a volunteer in your community)

Cheers,

Melissa 

Self Portrait of a Bingo Caller

If life's a beach, let's keep it clean!

Growing up in California’s Bay Area, I have always had great love, awe, and appreciation for the ocean. Thinking about it now, the seed of my fascination with the ocean may have been planted when I saw my first movie in theaters, The Little Mermaid. After seeing it, and of course watching it over and over again at home, I always regarded the ocean’s undulating surface as an expansive blue curtain shielding another world filled with creatures beyond our wildest imagination.

While I am not a believer in mermaids, yes it’s unfortunate; I still regard the ocean with the same astonishment that I did when I was a child. I spent about 8 years of my young life dreaming of being an oceanographer. Why didn’t I fulfill my dream you ask? It all came to an end on career day when I listened to a real life oceanographer speak for the first time. I fell asleep to him talking about plankton, and mind you I rarely fell asleep in class, and I awoke to him still talking about plankton. He then ended his speech saying “Remember kids, don’t do it for the money”. I left the classroom knowing that was, in fact, not the career path for me. However, I still love the ocean, and know that we must do something NOW to help reverse the damage we have caused to the health of our oceans and all of it’s inhabitants.

Hearing about floating plastic land masses the size of Texas in the middle of the ocean, seeing pictures of birds covered in oil from recent oil spills, and watching the documentary The Cove, is enough to break my heart and make me sick thinking about how humans have trashed, disrespected, and taken advantage of our ocean. Our health is directly linked to its health, which is why I strongly believe we need to do something, together as a human race, and also as individuals on a daily basis.

I was going to pack this blog post with scientific facts about the ocean’s current state, but really do I need to? We all know the ice caps are melting, the ocean is littered with plastic, and its inhabitants are dying because of man made plastic materials and fishing equipment. The ocean also recently received a 60 out of a possible 100 as it’s current overall health score. I know for a fact that if I went home to my Mom with a 60 as my grade on a test, she would be very disappointed. That’s not a score that makes it onto the refrigerator.

While I can sit around all day worried about the state of ocean, I’m going to put my money where my mouth is. I will be participating, and filming beach clean ups over the next two weekends here in NYC, and dedicating my blog posts to reporting back all that I discover.

There are so many simple things we can do to make a difference. For example, and this is one I’ve really been trying to work on myself, let’s ban the plastic bags! Let’s also stop buying water bottles, or at least limit the amount we do buy, replacing them with reusable containers. Lastly, at the very least, let’s make sure to pick up our trash!

Here are a couple links to websites with detailed info about our ocean’s current condition.

Ocean Facts

Ocean Health Index

I look forward to participating in my first beach clean-up, and encourage all of you out there, be it near the coast or not, to pick up trash. Maybe even just one piece of trash everyday, even if it’s not yours. Think about what a difference that would make if we all actually did it!

I’ll be reporting back next week, so stay tuned!

Missy's Homestead: Gotta Love Thrifting

I love to shop.  It is true.  

I love window shopping, I love shopping with a purpose and I love shopping simply for no reason at all.  Growing up my grandmother use to take me thrift store shopping every summer.  I loved the hunt and especially loved getting things for a great deal.  When I was living in NYC I hardly ever went to thrift stores.  Occasionally if I was out around town and happened to run into one I might have stopped in.  But in general I rarely ever found the time  to go "thrifting".  

Since moving back to California I have had a restored passion in my thrifting.  Within walking distance from my house alone I have 6 thrift stores at my disposal and many more than that when I have the car for the day.  I love it.  I can go in to a thrift store and find great deals on pants, shoes, kitchen items and more.  But it takes some patience.  You may not find what you are looking for every time you go into a thrift store.  You have to be willing to wait awhile until you come across the item that you are looking for.  I find that not only can I usually get something that is amazing but I can also feel good about my purchase.  Most thrift stores are associate with either a Hospice or a "do good" company, i.e. the Salvation Army or Goodwill.  Some are even associated with helping to raise money for a specific problem, like cancer.  Not only am I able to find a product for less money than if I bought it new but I am also contributing to a good cause.  Now there is of course many times when thrifting for an item may not work.  If you need something right now than maybe going to a thrift store is not the solution but you never know.  Thrifting is also what I would consider a type of "green" shopping.  Instead of buying something that has tons of packaging, or might have simply been put in a landfill etc. etc. you are keeping items in circulation instead of filling up our earth with more trash.  What a great way to be green and help consumer more and buy less.  By purchasing and using something that has already been made you help create less waste.

I know thrift stores are not for everyone.  That is okay.  There is nothing wrong with wanting to spend one's money on nice, new things.  However, if you can find simple ways to save money and help save the earth, try buying that ice cube tray or that new coffee mug, or that pair or jeans at a place where you can feel good about where your dollar is being spent and your contribution to the environment.  Plus I guarantee you will have fun at a thrift store if you just take a moment to look at all the amazing things that people have donated.  

Until Next Time.  Buy More and Consume Less! (p.s. try thrifting)

Missy

thrift store near my house!

Inside SCOOP: Unmasking the Superfoods pt.2

Superfoods… high on nutrients, low on calories, foods filled with disease-fighting anti-oxidants and essential nutrients that our bodies cannot make for themselves. What's not to love? :)

Last week we talked about GREEN superfoods and this week, I look into FRUIT & NUT superfoods. I really became curious about this when looking into acai berries and fruit drinks.  So, let's start with them first.

Yummy recipe : Acai Breakfast Bowls

ACAI – These reddish, purple berries come from the acai palm tree, native to Central and South America. Acai contains anthocyanins (Greek: Flower + blue) and flavonoids, which are powerful anti-oxidants that  help the body fend off free radicals it produces as byproducts. Antioxidants are said to slow down aging and reduce the risk of some disease such as heart disease and cancer.

TIP: Freeze dried acai fruit keep the nutrients in tact, or if you’re getting it in juice form, opt for a those that have not been pasteurized or heated.

Ideas for Goji Berry treats from Goji Apple salad to Sweet Earth cookies... 

GOJI BERRIES – These fruits grow on vines in valleys of inner Mongolia and Tibet.  Rich in Vitamin C, (500 X more per ounce than oranges), they actually have the most Vitamin C of all the fruits.  Goji Berries are also great sources of vitamins A (good for the eyes and light absorption) and E (important in the formation of red blood cells, among other functions).

RAW CACAO – Here we’re talking about certified organic cacao in powder, nib, or whole bean forms. This cacao, unlike most cocoa powder and commercial chocolate, is not processed using the “Dutch method” where heat of up to 150°C can wipe out most of the nutrients and antioxidants.  (Have to say, this realization is kind of a bummer, but that doesn’t mean unprocessed cocoa can’t be just as tasty… Pssst... cacao nib recipes here..)

Certified organic cocoa is never subjected more than 40°C, which allows you to reap the full benefits. For instance, raw cacao is one the world’s most concentrated sources of antioxidants, and is high in magnesium content.

MACA – This powder, from the Maca root originates from Peru and was a go-to strength and endurance for Inca warriors some 2000 years ago.  Maca aka Peruvian ginseng, is also said to support fertility, and boost libido, and the immune system.

COCONUTS -  Young coconuts are one of the highest natural sources of electrolytes: ionized salts that deliver energy throughout the body.  So, coconut water is a better bet than sugary, artificially colored sports drinks.  Since the structure of coconut water is close to that of human blood plasma, it’s readily absorbed and processed by the body.

Ok, it's fried, but... this recipe for Coconut Beer Shrimp with Sweet & Tangy Sauce sounds mouthwatering!

COCONUT OIL –The body digests the saturated fat of coconut oil are more easily other saturated fats from butter, meat and eggs.  These fatty acids go directly to the liver for energy conversion. Ultimately, coconut oil speeds up your metabolism, which means faster calorie burn, which helps with weight loss.  It’s also got great antibacterial, antiviral, and anti fungal properties.

NONI –The noni fruit contains a plethora of vitamins, minerals, enzymes and phytonutrients  that make it a powerhouse in fighting off colds and the flu. Research has shown the super fruit to have anti-tumor activity, and anti-inflammatory properties, as well pain-relieving and cell-restoring capacity. As with the acai, stick to freeze dried fruit and unpasteurized juice.

A votre santé!

C.