Food In The Belly, Food For The Soul

I write about food a lot. Food is something I devote much of my time to, as well as a significant part of our income. Food excites me, challenges me and inspires me (and sometimes defeats me). Much of our weekends are taken up with the growth, preparation, cooking and celebration of food (and by that I mean eating).

Every society has a food culture of some sort. Countries are known for their cuisine; the particular ingredients and cooking methods they employ, the rhythms and routines around meal preparation, the colour and bustle of marketplaces around the world. Early trade was centred around foods, and what was commonplace for some cultures was exotic and sought after to others. Nomadic communities based their movement around the availability of particular seasonal foods.

I believe that, by and large, Western society has lost its food culture. And we miss it, by god, do we miss it. We spend millions annually on the business of food; fine dining restaurants, specialty food stores, cooking schools, food festivals. I believe that, as we have evolved, this disconnection from food and its production that we have created has left our society feeling somewhat... hollow. We make up for it by spending more millions traveling to other cultures to experience their food culture... and when we try to recreate it with our Western tastes, we adulterate and compromise the essence of the food. Food culture is, and should be, entrenched in the soils it was raised up from.

Anyway, I was determined to write a lighter post than the last two, so I wanted to share with you some of ways we try to recreate a connection with the earth and its edible gifts in our space. These are photos from this weekend, a lovely, productive two days of pottering around the house and garden, feeding our bellies and feeding our souls.

Breakfast: fruit and honey damper with the last of my apricot sauce

Our harvest on Saturday

More bottled tomatoes - a pantry staple

Our little garden gnome, Eden

The bed we planted this weekend - tomatoes and rhubarb

Orange and date chutney simmering away - a sweet, spicy smell

Finished product - three more jars for the pantry

The beginnings of beer bottling

A clean, mucked out chook pen - and our reward!

A Day In Photos.

Nathan is on holidays. He has a month off work, and we have been looking forward to this break for so long. Aside from a short camping trip over New Year, we do not intend going away. We plan instead to spend some long, slow, quiet days as a family in and around our home, finishing projects, starting new ones, tending the garden, playing together, reading, cooking and relaxing.

Although this 'holiday' has been much anticipated on my part, I must admit I have struggled to slow my rhythm down and just enjoy being. I'm not used to having less time pressure and not having our weeks revolve, even grudgingly, around work days.

Today we did nothing. And it was glorious.

 

 
While I slept this morning, Nath took the girls on a nature hunt and they made these beautiful leaf/feather/stick collages. Miya particularly was so engaged by this.

I went on a op shop treasure hunt this afternoon and found these beautiful, large, festive fabrics for $1 each (each piece is about 4 metres in length) that I plan to cut and hem to use as an alternative to wrapping paper. We do have some gifts wrapped in recycled paper under the tree but I would love to replace the need for further wrapping paper, that will undoubtedly be torn off in a frenzy of gift giving and end up in our recycling bins, with reusable, material wrapping.

I also found some fantastic patterns for dresses, shirts and skirts in vintage style, which is making a return to fashion, for 50 cents apiece, as well as bags of unused wool which I picked up for my mother in law, who lives overseas and finds it difficult to find wool to sustain her knitting hobby.

But by far the best find of the day on my op shopping adventure this afternoon would have to be.....

..... an old style Soda Stream complete with the original glass bottles. This will come in very handy as I struggle through giving up my addiction to Coke Zero. The best bit, though, was the price tag....

Armed with my goodies, I came home to tuck a last few items into a Christmas Hamper to be sent overseas to Nathan's parents. Nathan's mum has a great appreciation for treasure hunting in opshops, living frugally and reducing waste, so I know she will be thrilled with their Christmas gifts this year, which, aside from a couple of iconic Australian food items, are entirely handmade or thrifted. Including the box they are being sent in.

Dinner was Nathan's creation tonight - homemade chicken burgers on damper rolls. There is something so satisfying about eating meals that have been made entirely from scratch - that is, entirely from natural, rather than processed, ingredients. We are not yet at the point where we are producing 100% of our own produce, and won't be until we either own our own home or are settled long term into a rental property, but we grow or barter or receive from the gardens of friends and family roughly half of our fruit and veg, and make almost everything from ingredients in their most natural or unprocessed form.

Slow days at home - what a blessing!