Chickweed foraging, coffee, and a wicked sweet tooth

My two pet rabbits, Yogi and Cleo, eat a lot of greens.  Soon I'll have to buy them their veggies, but right now I can still forage for them.  During the spring and summer they eat a lot of clover, dandelions, plantain and Queen Anne's lace.  But in cool weather like this, one of the most plentiful edible greens is chickweed.  And guess what?  People can eat it, too.  The simplest way to prepare it is to eat it raw in salads, but you can also add it to soups or, lightly sauteed, to omelettes.  I also found a recipe for chickweed pesto here (This site also has a good photo to help you identify chickweed.)  I've also used chickweed in an herbal salve for Jake, who is prone to eczema.

Other than the chickweed, I don't have too much to report.  This morning Jake and I drove downtown to the coffee shop to meet our friend, the playwright Michael R. McGuire.  (We normally walk but it was raining.)  Although I've posted in the past that all other things being equal, I'd rather buy tea than coffee so the shop owner makes a little more money, today I was dragging and opted for coffee. 

When the weather cleared I walked to Fiddleheads.  I've had an awful, awful craving for sweets the past few days, the kind of craving that sweet potatoes couldn't touch.  I thought I'd buy a chocolate muffin, but instead I discovered my not-very-junky favorite new junk food: Cocoa Mole sprouted sunflower seeds by Kaia Foods.  These were delicious!  The ingredients were organic sprouted sunflower seeds, organic raw agave nectar, organic raw cacao powder, organic vanilla extract, organic cayenne pepper and sea salt.  A really piggish amount was only 2.99--a small price to pay to be able to finally think about something other than chocolate.  And now that I've tried them, I can probably replicate them at home.

I bought a little lettuce and a carrot, too.  And I managed to bring them home in something other than clear plastic bags. :)

Tomorrow Mike has a reading of one of his plays down in Westport.  A bunch of us are carpooling down to see it (yay) and we'll be getting home late.  So I probably won't be posting again until Thursday. 



Daily Consumption Totals:

Entertainment: $2 (I've been vacillating, but I've decided not to include tips.)

Food: $6.10

Miles Driven: 1.5

Foraged: chickweed  (There's been lots of foraging since I started this blog.  This is just the first time I've mentioned it.)

homemade sprout shelf; homemade cat toy

Now that our outdoor garden is petering out, it's time to focus more on growing our food inside.  We don't have grow lights or a heating mat or anything fancy, but we can still grow sprouts.  In fact sprouts are a little easier to grow in the winter because they're less likely to mold.

Even in summer when produce is plentiful, I usually have some sprouts growing.  I love how in just a few days, a tablespoon of seeds can turn into a whole quart of food.  But we didn't have enough space to grow more than one jar at a time...until now!  Check out the sprouting shelf that Jake built:

Pretty, isn't it?  And see the plastic shelf underneath? That's to catch the draining water.  (The shelf where the jars sit has drainage holes.)    What a great design! 

Sprouts are easy, easy, easy to grow.  My rabbits could grow sprouts if rabbits had opposable thumbs.  All you have to do is soak a tablespoon or so of sprouting seeds overnight.  Then drain them, add some more water, swish them around, and drain them again.  Wash and drain them twice a day and...that's it!  You'll have sprouts in less than a week.  I use the plastic mesh lids on my mason jars for washing and draining my sprouts, but lots of people use cheesecloth, and one of my regular readers uses a different system with coffee filters.  (Maybe she'll explain in the comments?)  I always keep my jars at a 45 degree angle so all the water drains out and the seeds don't rot.

I'm lucky because the co-op has a huge assortment of sprouting seeds: alfalfa, broccoli, radish, oats, clover, and lots of seed mixes with interesting items like cress and fenugreek.  I'm currently growing a French blend, a salad blend and a legume blend.  I'll post pictures when I get a full jar.

Another side effect of colder weather is that Trilby doesn't get to go on many excursions, so he needs more toys.

I made this catnip fish's face from some thrifted linen.  The body fabric came from a great local store, Affordable Fabrics, which sells manufacturer's overstock fabric for 1.99/yard.  I had bought it for another project a while ago and still had some scraps lying around.

I did do a little driving and shopping today.  I went back to Connecticut College's library for Black Jacks: African American Seamen in the Age of Sail.  And because the college is so close to the supermarket, I bought twelve cans of cat food, four organic pears and one bunch of organic celery.  I didn't need apples today, but while I was there I noticed that the price of conventional apples is hardly any cheaper than the organic apples at the co-op.  I was relieved, because I wondered if buying organic was a big splurge.  Nope, not really.

Daily consumption totals:
People Food: 5.86
Cat food: $4 (on sale and generated a $1 coupon)
Miles Driven: 6.3
Stuff we made from stuff we had on hand: sprout shelf and cat toy.

Foiled again! Plus this week's consumption analysis

Once again, the odds looked good for a purchase-free, zero-driving day.  Not only did we have plenty of food in the house, but Sunday is my waitressing day. I walk to and from work, and I figured I wouldn't go zipping around buying stuff and wracking up the mileage in between serving pumpkin roulade and mulled cider.

Ahem.

The trouble started when, as I walked into the kitchen after work, I saw Jake at the door with our cat Trilby wearing his harness.  So we three headed back--more specifically, drove back--downtown.  I bought...well, it wasn't sweet potatoes so it must have been coffee.  And Trilby got to explore the cafe's landscaping.

After we drank our coffees, we walked through downtown and stumbled upon a new gallery where Trilby was welcome.  Then we drove to the communtiy garden , picked some greens, and came back home. 

I have to admit, I don't regret my zero consumption plans being foiled.  This was a really sweet surprise outing.

Sorry I haven't had any useful information these past few posts!  But hang on, because I've got a few good posts planned for next week.

Today's Consumption Totals:
Entertainment: $3 (includes tip.)
Miles Driven: 1.5

Consumption Analysis for 11/08-11/14
Food: $37.92 All of this came from the co-op or directly from local farmers.  $3 was an impulse buy of a muffin and a coffee.
Entertainment: $33.  Of this, $25 was the annual library card fee.
Personal Care: $4.98
Household: $3.98 (the sprouting lids)
Gifted to me: bok choy, granola, sweet potatoes, homemade raspberry jelly.
Cat Food: $5 (my share)
Waste generated: the packaging from the sprouting lids, the ear plugs and the cotton swabs; two clear plastic bags
Miles Driven: 19.2

Maybe I should change the name of this blog to What People Gave Me.

Today was the kick-off of the co-op's winter farmers' market.  We celebrated with a pancake breakfast

and live music and even a dancing cat (or is she a mouse?).

Of course this required a lot of volunteers, which got me thinking about the gift economy again, and how Fiddleheads is a place where the market and gift economies not only coexist, but support each other.  As a vendor I was part of the market economy.  I was also a shopper, buying the usual: almonds and dates to make almond milk, apples and bananas for breakfast smoothies, and (wait for it) sweet potatoes.

But it was the gift economy that made the day so special. First the vendor next to me gave me some of her homemade coconut granola.  Then one of the Fiddleheads volunteers gave me some vegan minestrone. (This was part of the farmers market celebration; she was giving it to everyone.)  Then Anita gave me this beautiful bok choy:

And Janice gave me her homemade raspberry jelly.  This is extra special to Jake and me because we used to rent an apartment where Janice lives now,and we remember picking raspberries from those same bushes.

And then when I got home, I realized someone had anonymously tucked into my bag yet another gift: more sweet potatoes!!! One of them is my favorite sweet potato ever.  It looks like a big inch worm or a little Lochness monster, and up until today it was perched on a shelf over all the other sweet potatoes, where it made me smile every time I saw it.

I gave a bit away as well today, but I have a long way to go before I am giving as freely as the people around me.  And although I don't think of myself as a sentimental person--I actually get angry at sentimental movies--this kind of sweetness brings me just this side of tears.

In other consumption news, after the market Jake and my former writing instructor Glenn and I went to the Dutch, where I consumed a baby Brooklyn ale. :)

Today's Consumption Totals:
Food: $13.47
Entertainment: $3
Gifted to me: granola, soup, bok choy, sweet potatoes, raspberry jelly
Miles Driven: 1.5

La La La La I Can't Hear You.

I thought, I really really thought, that today would be my first no purchase, no driving day.  Even though I had eight packages to ship, I walked rather than drove to the post office.  And oooh, I was smug about it.  I was planning an awesome blog post about my own awesomeness even as I was awesomely walking.

It turns out I'm not all that awesome.

I hadn't been home an hour when I realized I didn't have enough distilled water to make soap.  And I was getting low on time.  So I drove--on a beautiful, sunny 62 degree day!--9/10 of a mile to the CVS and back.

I also bought some ear plugs so I wouldn't hear you all jeer at me (okay, so I wouldn't hear Jake snore) and 350 cotton swabs so my ears would be clean when I plugged them.

And then, just to ram home the point that I'm not even a little awesome, I realized I had to go out again for ink cartridges for my printer. 

Today's Consumption Totals:
(excluding business purchases)
Personal care: $4.98
Miles Driven: 5.3

The Kale Came Back, or Lewis Hyde and the Gift Economy

Remember how good I felt being able to give away a few bunches of kale?

Today some of the kale came back.  And when it did, it looked like this:

That's granola with kale chips!  Homemade by my musician friend Gabriel, a talented, think-outside-the-box cook.

When I told Gabriel how much I've been noticing and appreciating the gifts people give me, he asked if I'd ever heard of the writer Lewis Hyde.  Nope, I hadn't.  But it turns out he is the author of The Gift, a book about gift-giving in different cultures and about the contrast between a gift economy and a market economy. 

Here's a nugget from  JoAnn Schwartz's review of The Gift:
In a market economy, one can hoard one's goods without losing wealth. Indeed, wealth is increased by hoarding--- although we generally call it 'saving'. In contrast, in a gift economy, wealth is decreased by hoarding, for it is the circulation of the gift(s) within the community that leads to increase--- increase in connections, increase in relationship strength.

I think part of the reason I love Fiddleheads is that although money changes hands at the check-out counter, it is also a hub of the local gift economy.   People donate books to the co-op's honor system library; musicians donate performances; someone even donated much of the shelving and refrigeration.  On top of that, it is 100% volunteer run.  Many people are giving the gift of time so that the co-op can stay open.

In other consumption news, I bought brightly colored plastic:

red, green and yellow plastic lids for sprouting jars, along with an assortment of seeds. 

Lastly--gasp--I bought these:

A gluten-free chocolate muffin and a coffee.  I didn't buy these to rent table space at a cafe while I talked with friends.  I didn't buy them because I was hungry and needed food.  (I'd brought split pea soup from home but ate this instead.)  No, this was strictly an impulse buy, probably the most wasteful (but delicious!) purchase I've made since I started tracking everything.  Let's just call it a gift I gave myself for volunteering at the co-op.

No driving today!  I think I deserve another muffin.

Today's Consumption Totals:

Sprouting seeds and lids: $7.76

Lunch (muffin and coffee): $3

Gifted to me: kale granola

Miles Driven: 0

Today I bought a year's worth of reading for $25

Didn't need food, didn't need clothes, didn't need anything except  a few pine needles from the tree outside the Connecticut College library.  (I use them for one of my soaps.) "Woo hoo," I thought. "I'm going to go another day without buying anything."  But of course I can't pass within a hundred feet of a good library without going inside--especially when I'm doing some research for a play.  And also of course, once I've spent an hour choosing fifteen pounds of just the right books, I'm not going to let a little thing like an expired library card come between me and my reading.

So when the librarian said it was time to pay the annual $25 fee for people not affiliated with the college, I gulped and paid.

Because where else am I going to find books like Women's Rights and Transatlantic Anti-Slavery in the Era of Emancipation and The Bloodless Revolution: a Cultural History of Vegetarianism from 1600 to Modern Times. 

You couldn't live without these either, could you?

Today's Consumption Totals:
Library Card: $25
Miles Driven: 4.6