A Major Award!

This caption is lost on our illiterate readers, but they appreciate the photos.

The experience of 'blogging' is still relatively new to me.  I suppose that we've reached a point in our culture where blogging is just another actual verb and does not require the quotation marks, so perhaps I will drop them from here on out.  You'll have to forgive me if I end up using them later; I still remember growing up in a time where no one had a cell phone and we didn't waste time on the internet because there was nothing on the internet to waste time on...and nobody was using it.  Cats were generally less famous.  Looking back now, I'm actually grateful that my own childhood was bereft of these things, though I am beginning to digress from the topic at hand.

So, blogging.  Christa had actually set-up the blog itself.  She chose the formatting and put it together, established the theme and wrote the initial description and first post.  I had assumed that while I would do most of the cooking, she would in fact take care of the technical side of things and do most of the posting.  She is a child of the cellular/internet age...a digital native.  She is also well versed in maintaining a blog, as she has had her own for years, and has kept journals for longer than I have known her.  Thus, as I'm now writing my 20-somethingeth post (and I know that's not many, but as I pointed out I'm still new to this), I just had to take a moment to think about how much more involved I have become in the writing/blogging end of things.  I've never kept a journal, I've never really had any kind of public forum such as this before to express myself, and it seems that I had no idea that it was something that I was missing.  I really enjoy this, and it turns out that this has become one of the many ways in which Christa has brought joy into my life.

Now that I'm actively blogging an really enjoying myself doing so, I have found that I am really generally interested in things like how many visitors actually come here, and who is reading what we have to say.  It's a pretty young blog without any revolutionary content, so that number is still 'not many', and I'm pretty sure that most of them are friends and family.  That's cool, though, because we aren't really trying to reach the world just yet, but to share our experiences with food and share some tasty recipes that are legitimately healthy.  Our friends and families are really our target market in that regard. 

Now, allow me to finally get to the meaning behind the title of this post.  (No recipes today, I'm afraid, but I did make some killer venison pot pies that will be up sometime soon.)  Very recently, an external factor recognized the legitimacy of what we are doing here.  I had written to Pure Indian Foods in order to inquire about obtaining a product sample for review on our site.  They had posted an open invitation to do so on another social media website, so I decided that I had nothing to lose in submitting our little blog for their potential approval.  I had found out about this company for several reasons.  I am a fan of ghee, but the only ghee that I have used has been that which I've rendered myself, so I was curious about trying a prepared product.  Their ghee is certified organic from grass fed cows, so that fit in with my own nutritional ethics.  Additionally, they offer a naturally condensed cane sugar product called jagger, which is essentially pressed sugarcane juice that is naturally evaporated (not separated, not refined; all minerals still intact).  Baking sweets can be challenging with only natural and unrefined sweeteners.  Maple syrup does impart additional flavors, and you can't really bake with raw honey because once it is heated it's no longer raw.  One more bonus - they're actually a local family run business, based out of Princeton. 

We're under no obligation to crack this open, but we will.

I decided that I had nothing to lose by inquiring about sampling their ghee and their jaggery, but I really didn't expect to receive anything.  Call it an exercise in rejection.  However, I was really excited to find out that they had decided to select us to review some samples, and were shipping out ghee and jaggery.  So, it's not a major award, but it felt good to have what we are doing validated in that way.  Of course, I'm also extremely excited to try these out in all kinds of recipes.  Some things I already have in mind, and for others I'm hoping for some feedback from you.  So please, if you happen to be in our core audience, or just wandered in from someplace near or far, I'm hoping that you'll take a moment to leave some suggestions down below in the comment section of what we can do with these two foods; particularly the jaggery as I have never used it before.  I found a couple of rice dishes, and I might also try to use it next time that I make pumpkin pie (which I promise to put up here as a recipe post).  My pie crust is pretty fantastic if I do say so myself.  Which I just did. 



Oh, so I have to add this down here.  Disclaimer: Pure Indian Foods provided me with a free sample of this product to review, and I was under no obligation to review it if I so chose. Nor was I under any obligation to write a positive review or sponsor a product giveaway in return for the free product.





I closing, another photo for those of you who can't read, or are in fact fantastic readers but also like looking at pictures, or just managed to make it all the way to the end of this posting. 

Gratuitous shot of the aforementioned pot pies and pie crust.  Stay tuned.

Out on the Farm

Sourcing Groceries

Happy cows are healthy cows. 

 Let me confess something here - shopping for food is absolutely my favorite kind of shopping.  I really enjoy finding good sources of healthy foods with which to make recipes from.  While I find lots of inspiration from books and the internet, and typically make my grocery lists quite organized in advance of heading out to the store, I also revel in wandering through the produce section of Whole Foods or Wegmans and choosing my upcoming menus based on what is fresh and available at the time.  Good ingredients  tend to come together naturally, while forcing a dish together with sub-par components typically yields sub-par results.

Grocery stores, such as the aforementioned, do in fact make up the majority of my food shopping trips, especially in the winter months.  I love visiting our local farm markets in the summer and fall, and given the option I would do all of my shopping there, but the reality of the situation is that in New Jersey the produce season is limited, and we don't grow coconuts or oats (which are basically dietary staples for us) that I'm aware of.  I like that Whole Foods sources at least some of their supplies from local producers, which also creates a different shopping experience depending on whether or not I happen to be down in Princeton of up in Ridgewood.  However, yesterday I made a trip for some really fantastic local food.

Vegetables might be out of season, but my nearest source of pasture raised grassfed beef is well stocked.  Going straight to the farm is such a fantastic experience and I recommend it to anyone who can (and if you do a little legwork, you will likely find a farm or six nearby).  Not only do you get to see how your food has been raised, but you can talk to the people who have raised it, and in my experience they are friendly and knowledgeable and very happy to talk shop.  I particularly like the fact that I know how my meat was treated before it reaches my table, which gives me peace of mind on the nutritional quality as well as the quality of life that the animal experienced.  You don't need to be a vegetarian to be proactive about animal welfare.  I eat animal products daily, and I treasure them as natural sources of high quality fats, protein, and vitamins/minerals.  Additionally, the money that I spent went directly to the farmer - I didn't have to pay a mark up to any middleman, and the farmer took home 100% of the retail sale.  

January isn't a high production month in the northeast for chickens that live outside freely, but the farmer and I took a walk to the coops to see if we could find a dozen or so eggs at my request.  We found only three, which she was kind enough to give to me for free, and I also got to take a look at the coops and laying boxes that they use on a small scale operation.  This was particularly neat, as Christa and I have been giving serious consideration to keeping a few chickens ourselves for egg laying once we have the space.


I picked up about 30lbs of mixed bones, some liver, a heart, and a little bit of ground beef there.  I hope that you stick around to see what I end up making out of all of it (some if will be delicious, I promise), and I encourage you to go out and meet the farmers in your area.  They are really your best source for fresh local food, and often times the healthiest and most humanely raised as well.