Marketing the Market

For breakfast today we had a delicious strawberry soup as given to us from Chef Tracy at Glaser Farms:

1 pint large fresh strawberries
1/4 cup fresh or frozen raspberries
5 large dates, chopped and soaked in OJ for 4 hours
1 cup fresh orange juice
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

Blend all in the blender til smooth. I spooned some of last night's "yogurt" into it as a garnish.

We made a large batch of untuna from some sunflower seeds we sprouted earlier this week. I still haven't made my sunnies, but I need to get them on tomorrow.

Tonight I was experimenting with my cashew cheeze and substituted it into my ranch salad dressing recipe. I wasn't hungry so didn't taste it, but it got rave reviews from everyone else. They made quite a feast of it with some broccoli spears and celery sticks. I also made a batch of "cheddar" from the remainder of the cashew cheeze. I discovered yesterday that we still had a nice patch of parsley in the garden, so I got that to use in the recipes. Nice touch!

I also ate a banana today and 2 of my beloved mangos. I do look forward to the mango season every year.

We decided today that we would try to make a run of introducing the Jacksonville Beaver Street Farmer's Market to organic produce. We have talked to the venders there, and many of them fear people won't pay the extra price for organic produce, and it doesn't really matter anyway. I believe very strongly in using organic when it is available. One of the most amazing things to me about it is how much different it tastes. I love the flavor of organic, in most cases, much more than conventional produce. There are some foods I won't even consider buying conventional for the taste factor alone including: strawberries, bananas, apples, grapes, lettuce, celery, and cucumbers. How a fruit or vegetable is grown definately affects its flavor, and I have to assume its nutritional value as well. There is still a lot we don't know about this aspect of horticulture.

We are experimenting with our garden this year of putting as much living soil into our grow boxes as possible to see if it affects the quantity and quality of the produce grown. We are anxious to see if it helps it to ward off viruses and funguses so prevalent over the summer here.

Our goal at the farmer's market is to educate the public re: the importance of eating more raw, fresh, organic (when possible), fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds. We are going to distribute literature and have samples of foods we like. We cannot prepare and sell these foods without a lot of permits, but we're not sure that's the direction we're supposed to be going anyway. Our thing has always been education, and this new aspect of our lives isn't any different. So, we hooked up with a couple of organic producer and/or distributors today, and we are hoping to start next weekend. See you at the market!

Soup and Salad, again

No time for pictures today. We drank our "hot" lemonade all day while working in Palakta. I just made 2 quarts of it, one for Roger, and one for myself, and we ran out to the van when we got the chance for a sip of it.

When we got home, Roger juiced a bunch of celery for the cuke soup, and it was delicious and very light and nourishing as usual. I also made untuna salad from the sunflower seeds I had sprouting. This is Wyatt's favorite. Or one of them. The sprouted wheat crackers also came out of the dehydrator, and Wyatt said they tasted like popcorn. That's a new one. I haven't had one yet.

We had green salad left over from dinner last night upon which to plop our untuna pate, and it was quite tasty, but I haven't been very hungry for salad lately which is very unusual for me. I'm in the soup mode, I guess, and juice.

Well, that's all we ate today. Roger is still polishing off his pie...

It's interesting, isn't it, how we don't overeat the raw foods as much as their cooked counterparts. It's certainly not for lack of taste. I think the nourishing value of them is certainly an aspect of it. The cooked foods, and certainly the junk foods, don't have the nutritional value, so we find ourselves eating more than we should to get satisfied. We're satisfied on many fewer calories when eat foods in their natural state. Nice, huh, not to have to feel like a glutton all the time.

We drove past a former favorite restaurant today, and I felt the heaviness in my stomach I would experience when eating there. It is extremely unpleasant, and a feeling I am NOT anxious to experience ever again even if the addictive side of my head is telling me I want to experience the "taste" sensation.