I'm having fun

Pickles! Real, live, actual, brined (fermented) pickles. I just hope they turn out and I don't do something gastly to them to make them inedible.
I have been reading about our modern diet. Actually I do that a lot. Recently, I've been interested in how we process food and make it not really food anymore. Our bodies are seriously lacking the enzymes that come from a group called lactobacillus. Now, that is a bit misleading, because when the scientists-that-be named this group of micro-organisms, they were studying milk products. Hence the "lacto." But, really, they are found anytime something ferments. In our modern day clean everything world, we think of fermentation as bad. In reality, we need fermentation. Our favorite dairy products--cheese, yogurt, sour cream, kefir, etc are all fermented. The Japanese make and eat tempeh which is very nutritious and makes soy very digestible. So the fact is, fermentation is very desirable. We just tend to process foods to the point that the micro-organisms that inhabit them when we get them are bad. Raw milk, when left on the counter, turns into very yummy things. Like yogurt, sour cream, clabber and such. Paturized milk turns into yucky things. Research is even showing that we may be really harming ourselves by all this processing. I am getting raw goat milk soon for us to try. It stands to reason that if heating human milk destroys the nutrition, heating any other milk will do the same. I am so grateful that there is a provision in Oregon law that makes selling raw milk from a farm legal under certain conditions. And there is a farm nearby that does! Whoo Hoo!



I so love free food. Part of why I love living in Oregon. I plopped G in the stroller and placed a few containers in M's hands and up the hill we headed. In 5 minutes we were in the middle of blackberry heaven. I picked for about an hour. We brought these and 3 full bellies home with us. They turned into 15 half-pints of blackberry-honey jam and one scrumptious pie. The picture of the pie is un-baked. I never got a picture of the finished product. Too late now. :)
But I'm very proud of my crust. It is gluten free, so much harder to make it do things like this. All the time were picking, M was extolling the virtues of a lattice-crust pie. He's wanted one so bad I felt I must try it. It actually turned out great. I just hope he doesn't expect this from every pie!


Just had to include this one. G loves playgrounds. He has mastered all of the climbing stuff. (nearly). He just loves to get to the top and feel like a big kid I think. Can anyone really believe he is 2 months away from his 3rd birthday?! I swear we just brought him home.