Whiteley Creek Homestead

My daughter, Lisa, gave me money for my birthday. I had the greatest fun deciding how I would spend her gift. After careful consideration, I chose this pair of "midsummer black" gardening clogs. I love the autumn colors. 

 
The price on sloggers.com was $34.99, but I found them on amazon.com for $20.98. The savings left me with additional money to spend… enough to order two cookbooks that I have had my eye on… which qualified my order for Amazon's free shipping.

When NYC unexpectedly lost its power during a two-day multi-state blackout in August 2003, Louisa Shafia, author of Lucid Food: Cooking for an Eco-Conscious Life, was preparing to depart on the subway from Brooklyn to Manhattan when everything suddenly shut down. Shafia discovered that "something truly magical emerges when we slow down, turn off our gadgets, and approach the shared rituals of food – procuring, preparing, cooking, and even cleaning up – with an appreciation for its timeless role in our daily lives." Neighbors, who had scarcely acknowledged each other previously, gathered for spontaneous street parties during the power outage. Restaurants set up grills on the sidewalk outside their businesses and lit candles to invite patrons to gather inside. "The modern world of bright lights, cable TV, and fast food took a backseat to genuine face-to-face interaction, simple pleasures, rediscovery of true community spirit." Shafia organizes her healthful recipes by the seasons to synchronize our cooking with the earth's rhythm. She stresses the use of locally grown products because they are in-season, fresher, less processed to keep fresh, require less packaging, less fuel is needed to transport, and it supports the local economy. I have made Creamy Red Kuri Squash Soup from Lucid Food and it is very good on a cool autumn day.      

 
The recipes in Good to the Grain Baking with Whole-Grain Flours by Kim Boyce use a variety of twelve whole grain flours from amaranth to teff. I chose this cookbook to expand my repertoire of flours. I have already made Boyce's Fig Buckwheat Scones and they are a definite keeper.