We Are Home

After weeks getting ready and almost two weeks vacationing, we are home and readjusting to home life. Our vacation was a wonderful time away with all of our children, even our 20 year old came along.  We went to Yosemite, Disneyland, the Queen Mary, the Getty Villa and the ocean.

After a lifestyle of never eating out, we suddenly were eating at restaurants every day.  It was a visit to mainstream America.  I have spent most of my life eating without thinking and I quickly fell back into old patterns. I admit to even finding it refreshing.  Where was the food raised? I didn't know.  Who grew it?  I didn't know.  Were they treated decently?  Was the land treated decently?  I didn't know.  I scarcely noticed as I sat while others did all the cooking and cleaning.

My children didn't slide into non-thinking as easily as I did.  My ten year old twins commented as we left every restaurant, "it's so strange to just leave the dirty dishes on the table." My teenagers, who have completely rejected factory raised meat, maintained that conviction and mostly ate vegetarian.  However, at the Getty Villa they had free range chicken and our sixteen year old let out a gasp, "I can eat the meat!"

Although we ate out often, we still ate many meals in the trailer.  We had spent weeks cooking and getting all that food ready.  We had homemade pizza, wraps, and chicken strips.  We had homemade crackers, jerky, and dried fruit.  Even the oatmeal in the morning included some homemade applesauce from last fall.

Mid-way through our trip I noticed that I wasn't feeling bad.  I am accustomed to feeling a little off on vacation, not quite right in my stomach, and I realized that the homemade food we brought was probably the reason for the difference.  I got enough good food to keep my system in balance.

Now that we are home, I am relearning and rethinking all of the choices we have made.  It was so easy to just eat what was put before us.  I went a long time without the daily work in the kitchen.  Now I am readjusting to the time every day in the kitchen.  Dishes have to be washed and counters cleaned.  Dinners require thinking and planning and cooking.

I'm also reexperiencing the depth of flavor our lifestyle provides.  Tonight we had chicken with such rich chicken flavor that it barely needed salt.  At lunch we savored whole wheat rolls with homemade butter.

I heard that part of the idea of the Slow Food movement is the privilege of participating in food preparation.  That certainly isn't a typical American idea.  It got me thinking... Do I work so hard at cooking our own food because it is right or because we just can't afford a servant?  If we could afford to pay someone else, would I still do it?

But now we are back.  The garden has been ignored for too long and needs attention.  The cows were happy to have us back.  Christina's udder looks all sucked up inside her; nice and dry and no imminent calf.  And we just got 14 boxes of apples.  Today we turn them into applesauce, apple butter, and frozen packages for pie.