Confessions of compromise

It hasn't been quite a year, but it's definitely changed our lives. It's been hard, challenging, informative, empowering, tasty, colorful and green. It has been a process of changing our minds, changing our attitudes, making informed decisions and voting 3 times a day.

It started by reading this book -

Watching this movie -

Talking to this beautiful person -

And getting support from this awesome guy -

We decided to eat locally, seasonally and whenever possible - organically; for a year. We planted a gorgeous garden - ; canned 18 quarts of pears, 34 quarts of applesauce, fifteen 1/2 pints of spaghetti sauce, ketchup and apricot jam; we filled our freezer with zucchini, squash, peaches, apricots, triple-berry jam, berries, romanesco and onions; we dried herbs, apples and tomatoes; and sand stored carrots and potatoes. No, we didn't use all of our own produce, but we did buy the produce at our favorite local farmers market. Here's a sampling of our produce production:

Spring was easy; summer was beyond simple; fall was busy, but filled with goodness and then winter hit. We stayed pretty faithful to our commitment to eat seasonally until December - the realization of not having eaten a tomato for 3 months, no lettuce, no green stuff unless it had been cooked and starches holding us hostage we decided it was time to sit down and talk compromise. Our burgeoning waist lines and cravings were begging us to come to our senses and adopt a more "less harm" attitude.

I don't know how Barbara Kingsolver's family stuck with it through the winter months, but they did and for that they have my ultimate admiration. Nick and I have decided that hard-core seasonal eating is not the best choice for us. Will we stick to this idea as closely as possible - yes. Did I buy tomatoes in January - yes, but they were from California and organic; not from Mexico and raised in a hot-house. We've decided that while eating seasonally is an awesome achievement, we're going to aim for eating in a less harmful manner and as close to seasonal as possible. Part of the rationale for this is that we're also trying to eat healthy, lose weight and get in shape. We're back to buying veggies that may not be seasonal, but that are raised within the U.S. (preferably West Coast) and organic, we're still only buying fruit in season or eating what fruit we've put up and visiting our local winter farmers market.

This process has been so empowering and informative for Nick and I. I think about what I'm eating; where I'm buying my food from; how my decisions affect the environment/farmers/ community/etc.; and how much change I can make in the process of food policy. We intend to continue eating locally and as seasonally as possible; there will be another garden this year, more produce will be put up and further change will happen.

This decision feels good and right for us. My Seeds of Change catalog came in the mail - believe it or not, next month is the start to getting ready for gardening season!

Christmas in Walla Walla

We enjoyed a beautiful Christmas in Walla Walla with Nick's and my families. We spent Christmas eve traditionally with family and friends enjoying a fantastic meal of garlic soup. On Christmas eve night we opened up a crazy puzzle Nick and I had chosen to put together over the weekend; however, we did not plan for how huge the puzzle was and how little time we had so the puzzle came back to Seattle with us and is only about 1/3 finished. On Christmas day we went to church, ate dinner, opened gifts, opened stockings and ate way too much food!! On Sunday Nick and I enjoyed visiting his grandparents, having dinner with his parents and then attending a big family get-together. We made it safely home on Monday after stopping and picking up some wine at Cougar Crest and Three Rivers Winery and driving over the blizzarding pass.

We hope you had a beautiful Christmas and are looking forward to the New Year!!

Winter Extravaganza

The weekend was jam packed with plans of getting ready for Christmas - shopping, wrapping, baking, stuffing stockings, organizing and visiting the Seattle University Winter Market.

The winter market was amazing! Apples, soup, bakeries, meat, cheese, eggs, cider, wine, handmade pierogies, herbs, winter greens, even a mushroom vendor. We had so much fun checking out all that was available during the winter months and are thinking of trying another winter market. Definitely not something we'll do every weekend (prices are a little higher, weather is a lot yuckier...), but would like to maybe go 1-2 times a month.

Christmas is officially prepared for in the Tomczek household - shopping done, gifts wrapped, stockings stuffed, cookies made, Christmas party completed; now we'll head for Walla Walla next week and celebrate Christmas with my family and some visits with Nick's family. All I want is some snow like we had 2 years ago - EPIC awesomeness!

It's becoming a tradition...

Every other year we travel to one of my favorite places on this planet - Nashville, TN, and it's surrounding areas. I spent 4 years of my life there going to nursing school, made some of my best friends and experienced the awesome privilege of being "adopted" into this incredible family called the Simmons.

This year was an off year, one where Nick and I stay at home and invariably I end up working or being on-call and where we have started our own tradition of completing a home project. We realized that the last 2 times we've stayed home it's involved completing a home project. Two years ago it was the living/family rooms, which nearly ended in disaster if we wouldn't have had some awesome friends to help us put everything back together and cook dinner (so miss the Sormins and their being our project slaves!! =)). This year we ordered cabinets from Paul Franklin at Just Inside the Door Custom Woodcrafts and after much discussion and talking decided that rather than install beautiful cabinets and THEN do the pantry remodel, we'd do the remodel THEN install the cabinets. We've been working on it for about a week, technically 4 days solidly and it is all finished in time for new cabinets. It seems that with each project we take on some piece that we've never done before - this time it involved making and hanging our own exterior door. All I have to say to this is, "attempt once and next time buy a pre-made". The project is done though and if I do say so myself, it looks FAB-u-LOUS!! The cabinets will be here the second week in December and I cannot wait to remove my pantry from our dining room and kitchen and put stuff where it belongs - in beautiful, white cabinets with loads of storage space!! And it's done!! We pounded in the last nail, spackled the last hole and cut the last piece of board at 12:30 p.m. on Saturday night; today we finished the caulking, painting the spackle spots and the repair spots on the door. Pictures with the cabinets in will come soon!

We of course celebrated Thanksgiving by eating way too much food and tried a bunch of new gourmet recipes this year. Dinner consisted of: chantrelle and apricot stuffing, pear shallot gravy, mashed potatoes with Gruyere and caramelized leeks, squash casserole (thanks Mom Sandy for this delish recipe!), port and cinnamon cranberry sauce with homemade whipping cream, romanesco, sourdough rolls, pumpkin cheesecake and Cline Viognier wine. Absolute deliciousness!!

Leaf Shuffling and Apple Squashing

Two weekends in summary:
Nick and I enjoyed the last day at the farmer's market on October 30th and on a whim decided to drive up to Leavenworth to check out the fall colors. The leaves were gorgeous and we stopped along the river to take some pictures. In Leavenworth we walked around and ate lunch, bought a camera (our battery died at our first stop), took Jack for a walk down by the river, bought some chocolates and headed home. We also found handfuls of chestnuts to try roasting. We celebrated Halloween by passing out candy and watching our traditional Halloween movies of Corpse Bride and Young Frankenstein. The garden is officially tucked in with mesh on top of the boxes and burlap over the roses and herbs. I also planted some seeds of lettuce and cherry tomatoes to see if we can grow summer through the winter.

On Friday, November 5th, we headed for Walla Walla for canning applesauce with my mom. Over the weekend we celebrated my mom's birthday, ate a pre-Thanksgiving dinner with Nick's family and then the big event of canning on Sunday. We started at about 7:15 in the morning getting things set-up, cleaned and ready to go. The first apples started being cut at about 8 a.m. and we just went through batch after batch. I used 3 varieties of apples - jonagolds, galas and honey crisp; the goal was to use the least amount of sugar possible and I was successful at that and only used about a cup of sugar per batch. I ended up with 34 quarts for Nick and I for this winter/next year - about 9 quarts more than I planned for! Overall our stats were: 238 pounds of apples, 7 different varities, 14.25 hours, one trash bag full of apple pulp, 134 quarts of applesauce and 4 very tired ladies. We lifted the last jar out of the canner at 9:30 Sunday night. On top of that my mom made 8 loaves of homemade bread of which we indulged in while still hot and slathered in butter.

Ode to night shift

They come to work as the sun sets and
Go home as the sun rises.
During the winter months they hardly see the light of day.

They work in the dark or very dim lit room,
They walk softly and whisper their care,
Quietly telling you what they are doing and yet
Allowing rest and recovery to occur.

They wipe fevered brows, empty drains, watch telemetry monitors,
Listen to restful breathing or restless stirs.
They bring cots for family members
And offer reassurances.

They bring midnight snacks and pain pills.
They watch, wait and comfort through those tragic moments.
They sit at the bedsides of the dying and pray.

These are the nurses of the night shift.
The ones that keep vigil while others sleep
And dream...

They work in the dark and provide such light.

Seattle Seasons

First we had spring, then fall, then about 3-4 weeks of summer and now it's winter. Nick and I haven't even had a chance to take fall foliage pictures and with the wind we've been having it's not looking promising. This weekend we'll put the burlap over the herb bed, pick up a planter to put our lettuce in (growing it in the kitchen for winter salads!) and maybe pot a tomato plant so we can have cherry tomatoes through the winter as well.

I love fall - the colors change, you get to mow the lawn a little less, crisp afternoon walks, snuggling under the blankets with a cup of tea and a good book. This year I think we're skipping fall and heading straight for a la nina winter.

We opened our first jar of canned pears and it was quite delish if I do say so myself. The pears were a little firmer as some of my pears weren't completely ripe, but still tasty. So I guess that means our "experiment" has officially started it's winter portion. The question is: have we put up enough produce to survive the winter eating only the fruits of our labor (no fruit in season during the winter!)? I am hoping to make a huge batch of a couple different soups and put them in individual containers for lunches that can be easily pulled from the freezer. Just wanted to show you some pictures of one of our favorite veggies: Romanesco. We polished off about 3/4 of one head and then ate the 2 small ones out of our own garden; the rest I froze and put up 4 large quart size bags. This veggie tastes like a combo of broccoli and cauliflower, but much milder and very yummy. Hard to find, but worth the effort and price!



After completely tucking in the garden this coming weekend and canning applesauce the first weekend in November, I feel like we'll be ready for winter; predicted to be the worst winter in 55 years. I think we're almost ready!