May Highlights In My Kitchen

 I left you with the brining  ham last time, so here it is cooked up

The highlights of May. My version of In My Kitchen! Sprinkled through the various meals I fixed are a few books, and I read some very good ones in May; several on my new Kindle and a couple from our newly re-opened public library.  Actually the ones I got through Kindle were via the public library Overdrive program. We now book an appointment at the library, then go to the front doors, wearing a mask, to collect our books.:)  These last two months have been just hilarious. Ha ha.

 A Roots Soup, which was absolutely delicious!

I read a couple of Martha Grimes' novels, her books are always enjoyable, several by C.S. Harris with her Sebastian St. Cyr, English Regency period mysteries, and a new favorite author, Donna Andrews, who has an iron-mongering artist sleuth, with a totally hysterical family, whose Crouching Buzzard Leaping Loon was my most recently read. I heartily recommend these for any of you who want less angst and dread in your lives, to be replaced by humor. 

Hippie Food and Me

Our current selection from Cook the Books Club, is being hosted by fellow Hawaiian, Deb of Kahakai Kitchen. Much of this well researched tome, Hippie Food by Jonathan Kauffman, echos my own history.  I lived this darn book, some of it anyway.  Caught up in the world directly around us as we were, much of what Kauffman recorded was part of the "Mainland" story or only hearsay.  We were hippies, Bob and I, of a sort, back-to-the-landers (if you can go back to where you never were in the first place) in rural Hawaii.  Building a basic, simple home, planting trees, a garden and etc. However, we were under no illusions about supporting ourselves solely by farming, and had no inclination to live off the State.  So, day jobs. Me with commercial art and raising our daughter.  Bob in Real Estate.  Also, coming to know Jesus was a large factor in our staying together and staying sane through it all.  Plus, setting aside some unhealthy drugs was a big help with that too.

As far as food goes, Kauffman focuses mainly on the vegetarian aspect of "hippie food", which I don't think really merited all that emphasis.  We had a very short period of interest in vegetarianism while backpacking in Southeast Asia, China and Japan, before acquiring our parcel of land in Hawaii.  So would agree with what he said (page 198) about the counterculture taking up "the idea of eating as a political act and converted millions of people to vegetarianism, at least for a year or two."  But, helping at our food c-op, making home cooked meals, granola, and bread, cutting out processed foods, and trying to stay with organically raised produce, was definitely a priority for us then and remains so. I have researched the subject, and would encourage everyone to do that.  Find out for yourself why eating organically raised, less processed food is so important.