Sunday, November 19, 2006

On pessimism


I confess that I am a glass-half-empty kind of person. I mean, I do actively try to do positive things, like this fava bean plant that I planted in September, but my tendency is to think something will go wrong. Either this makes every success in my life a delightful surprise and I am insulated from the real downfalls in life or...I don't know. I am only myself.

So. I retrieved our organic free-range turkey yesterday from our milk lady. I had intended to get milk and cream for the 100-Mile-Thanksgiving, but I guess she had run afowl (bad pun) of the law by moving raw milk across the state line from Indiana. (The dairy is an Amish one.) So, no milk, no cream for butter. Likewise, my connection for corn and wheat flour has not come through. I have a bit of both of these left, but it'll be a stretch to use what I have for the whole meal. I will spend the rest of today trying to find the rest of these necessary ingredients. Wish me luck.

The one thing I did find out, though, is that a 100-mile radius from my house includes Chicago, Grand Rapids, and South Bend. So when I thought I had to get things from close by, I was mostly mistaken! Not that there are any raw-milk dairies in Chicago...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did they shut her down or take away her license? Isn't it ridiculous how hard it is to obtain high quality food in this age of such abundance?

Thanks for the 100-mile links, I'm checking them out right now!

El said...

I think she got caught in the limbo of the laws of selling raw milk in Michigan versus Indiana. We sign a contract with her, which'd be fine according to Michigan cows, but I guess the rub comes in that the contracts don't work with Indiana-produced milk. Like the Amish give a damn with contracts, anyway! So she says she'll be back up and running, but it may take a while.

Carol Michel said...

Yah, you have to watch out for that Indiana cow's milk!

The 100-mile Thanksgiving is an interesting idea... my sister is cooking for all of us this year, but it's probably too late to tell her "I'll eat anything as long as it came from within 100 miles." Maybe next year...