The Gastrocast

This article mentioned on Planet Raw Milk is a great story about a couple who own a  largely self-sufficient homestead. They, too, promote local, organic foods and Raw Milk. They also eschew vegetarianism, having tried it, for a more sensible diet based on meats, starch, and fats.  If you are thinking, "what sort of Hippies are they. . . ." you’d be wrong. They are part of an older generation who can remember what Homesteading was like.



This is all very interesting and comes on the heels of my finding this site about a family who fled modern society for the peace of the forest. It is very interesting reading and provides much thought fodder. Are we, any of us anywhere, prepared to deal with major climactic, terrorist, or social catastrophes which would change the structure of our lives and may force us to live a more local, insular lifestyle relying on the 1000 or so people in our nearest community and our own ingenuity? I am not saying this will happen, but it might. Can we be assured a safe food supply–is it safe the way it is? How can we reconcile today’s technology with a centuries old way of life (and I don’t mean this. . . ) to provide better foods locally so we can avoid burdening the tenuous fuel supply? And more importantly, is there a market for survivalist skills schools involving classes in gardening, construction and cooking which a Podchef could teach?

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Todd over at Planet Raw Milk has just posted a great article drawing from a piece in the New York TImes Op Ed page about how to fight a potential biological attack on our nations milk supply–obviously we should pasturize the bejeebers out of everything. . . .



Todd makes the better point that instead of trying to protect one large target, wouldn’t be better to have many smaller non-targets? I agree. Bring back the local, smaller concerns and foil the corruption of the larger, easier to bring down, national sources of our food supply. Why, in these days of increasing fuel costs and potential shortages, do we have to truck everything we eat to central points for inspection and redistrubution?



 I’ve been waiting, myself, for local strawberries to come out–and they’re here! I hold out, as much as I can, from buying the strawberries which have been trucked in from further South. A) They taste terrible because they’re grown for shipping, not flavor. B) they are more expensive in the long run.  Why get something that tastes crappy all year round, when if you wait for the right season–in this case a few weeks from when the fakey tasting berries hit the shelves–you can get something local (stock up and freeze or put up as jams) and support your neighbors and have something fleeting, but tasty? The more we take charge of purchasing our foods locally the better off we will be in the long run–it’s only been in the last 30 years that locally produced goods began disappearing–and the easier it will be to track problems (they’ll be isolated to communities rather than states) and harder for a terrorist to cause a widespread damage.

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I’ve spent some time updating my Company site to reflect this podcast. I really need to spend some major time reworking this site. It has been two years. I really want to encorporate a blog page in it, instead of the news page, and just make it into a dynamic rather than static site. If anyone has any pointers about it I would appreciate the feedback. I am not sure how much money I would spend on the thing–I did the site as it stands. It doesn’t generate very much traffic or leads but I do get a number of culinary questions through it, and I am able to point clients who approach me through traditional means to it before we speak further. It is, however, a classic example of failed web-marketing. I fear it is mis-directed as I don’t have an appropriate audience for it. Suprisingly enough the site and company name have lead numerous people to assume I am based in England.

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