I guess the new “Family Values” doesn’t include actually having any time to spend with your family because you are working so many hours just to get by. And forget about “vacation”. Yeah, the best Family Values are when it’s impossible to spend quality time with your family.

I know I’m very late to this thread but… last year a little kindergarten girl was unaware of where milk comes from… after learning about milking a cow, she made a terrible face and declared, “BLEGH! That’s disgusting! I’m never drinking milk again!”

funny and yet disturbing somehow…

Heard of a bunch of interns who inadvertantly drank a quart of human milk from the nursing station fridge. Three out of 4 threw up, so I’m told, and I gotta say I get a little queasy at the thought. Me, I’m a Carnation-and-cornsyrup kid (born 1949).

One of my dreams is to start an organic food coop in my town, as or tied to an ROP project for the high school. Anyone have experience starting uo one of them things? There’s an organization that has a stepbystep manual for startup but I want to hear from some horses…mouths.
I used to get organic produce delivered to my door every other week by a lovely team of people. It came with a recipe page that incorporated the veggies in the basket that week. I enjoyed not knowing exactly what I would get. They gave us a “hate” and “love” form to fill out when we first signed up, so at least I knew I wouldn’t get a whole basket of, say, lima beans and zucchini.

We are a ‘cell’ of this organization in Toronto, Foodshare/Field-to-Table. it’s been around for quite a while. My husband was involved in several food coops in Boston and CA when he lived there, he says this beats them all hollow.

One orders bi-weekly and there is a small drop-off group, 6 to 12 families, usually. Price for each type of box is fixed, you get your $19 worth of whatever is best that day. Since you pick up your stuff from a local drop-spot here can be lots of effective flexibility, eg, ’standing order’ or not, I’ll swap my bok choy for your beets and do down a batch, or someone will bring 6 copies of their vichysoisse recipe during potato season.� It’s a good way to meet some of your neighbours and do some local networking.

I get the ‘regular’ good food box, only some organic so I get more variety, also it helps farmers transition from ‘regular’ to organic farming. I will buy their stuff before they can be certified (have been off chemicals for the required 3 years), it’s cheaper and I don’t mind the occasional worm-hole. Some of the produce is local produce, from various small commercial growers, old hippy communes, and Mennonites. Communication is interesting w/them, as can’t contact them on Sabbath and most don’t have electricity, let alone phones or computers. The order is faxed to a gas station near one of the farms, someone from the farm walks down to the gas station, word is then passed to the other farms involved. Neat-o! They will know how tolive ‘after the deluge’, I am so glad to have a connection with them.

The boxes often have ‘foreign’ stuff in them, too. We sometimes get mangoes, coconuts, papayas and green figs, always some nice surprise in the box. Sometimes lovely herbal teas, or a big bunch of basil — yay, pesto tonight!

Highly recommended. Great idea, great folks, great food, lots of fun.

funny and yet disturbing somehow…

Mommybrain, 91:

Check out what Alice Waters has done in the Berkeley School district in CA. Here’s a link you can start with:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/ch
ronicle/archive/2004/08/29/MNG8T8FL1C1.DTL

Thanks, orange. Great story. Have you heard anthing about how it’s going?

In Orange County a few years ago there was a big kerfuffle about a private school that tried to get some reality into kids lives about where their food comes from. They did a kosher slaughter of a cow they’d raised, just like 4H kids do on the farm, only…kids fainted, threw up, got really wigged, even though it had all been explained to them beforehand. I think parents sued. Sigh. They’ll be the first to perish come the deluge.

Christy, I used to hate beets as a child but lovelovelove them now. Brush with olive oyl, roast at 400 about an hour; cool, peel, sprinkle with s&p and your favorite vinegar. What changed my mind was a jello salad from an old Fannie Farmer cookbood that included vinegar and shredded beets. It was so unexpectedly good that I knew I needed to revisit that particular food prejudice. And I’m really glad I did. Just remember when you eat beets, it colors everything that comes out of your body for a few days. No, you’re not bleeding internally…

mommybrain at 91 — hahahaha Am picturing what we’d do with a whole basket full of lima beans. For us it would be a hate basket of lima beans, brussels sprouts and beets. Blergh. *g*

Christy – this made me laugh out loud! Beets – always thought they tasted like dirt (not that I eat dirt, but you know what I mean). Husband tells me that when he was in Vietnam they called lima beans “motherf**kers.” Tried edamame (soy beans), and it was like someone made lima beans the way they were supposed to taste – really good and very good for you. Brussels sprouts – always looked like a good idea, but the reality… not so much. Even the dog won’t eat them, and anyone who knows labs knows they are the canine version of goats (or that kid on the Life cereal commercial).

Check out what Alice Waters has done in the Berkeley School district in CA. Here’s a link you can start with:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/…..8FL1C1.DTL

I used to get organic produce delivered to my door every other week by a lovely team of people. It came with a recipe page that incorporated the veggies in the basket that week. I enjoyed not knowing exactly what I would get. They gave us a “hate” and “love” form to fill out when we first signed up, so at least I knew I wouldn’t get a whole basket of, say, lima beans and zucchini.