vegan skill share event leads to thoughts about home schooling

I went to a local social/community centre yesterday to do a "skill share workshop", led by my friend. We learned how to make vegie burgers, and then had a little competition type thing to try changing the recipe and see who made the best burgers. I have been vegetarian for 13 years and never once made a vegie burger (*blush*). However I have also been cooking for 12 years and so general principles of cooking make sense to me.

At the start we were asked who had made vegie burgers before and almost everybody else said yes (there were a couple of other adults, and three 14-16 year olds). At one point I found myself being lectured to by a 16 year old about how ridiculous it was that I did not cook for myself until I went to university. I am not quite sure how my mum would have felt if I had started cooking and not eating her food, nor how she would have felt about paying for the extra ingredients (everything was budgeted very carefully, we had a calculator to add up what was going into the trolley and only things on the list went in). I don't suppose a 16 year old has had much cause to consider these things though. This however is another blog entirely! Anyway, despite my never having cooked for myself til i was 18, and never having made a burger til i was 30 it seems I was OK at it! I think general cookery skills were more important in the long run than having made a burger before.

Later I was asked about my organic veg box, which comes from Abel and Cole, however I was unable to say where my distributor was located. I don't think this matters as I have selected them for being ethical and for the range of products they stock which stops me from having to go to supermarkets so frequently. However, I did feel a little looked down on for not knowing this answer. Don't get me wrong everyone was lovely, but they were all far more "knit your own porridge" as Mr Green-Eyes would say (and he would barely tolerate such people as he can barely tolerate me!). Then the 16 year old tells me that there is a local box provider (the provider's name escapes her too), I explain that I am quite happy with my own. Then she suggests I do my shopping at farmers markets. Aside from the added petrol used to get to these farmer's markets I don't especially have the time. Now, I have questioned myself about whether I am being defensive. Lots of people have poor excuses why they can't do things, and generally they could do them if they really wanted, the reason they don't do them is because they don't want to. Maybe I just don't want to?

To be honest, I nearly suggested she should try having a job to go to before telling people how to live their lives or making judgements on the choices they make. I did however decide that actually though at 16 nearly everyone thinks they know everything, and actually at least she had some strong opinions. I don't think I knew any vegans at 16 or people who would have been able to/had the inclination to discuss merits of various organic distributors.

I was kind of surprised though that some of the others were home schooled, and had a friend who is steiner school educated. One of the adults at the skill-share was actually talking to another (who I happen to know to be a maintained-school teacher, I guess maybe he doesn't know that) and almost making the assumption that any socially inclusive/vegan/whatever label fits/knit-your-own-porridgers would do anything but home school their children. Apparently they have a home school group at the centre. It got me thinking... I usually align with the green-anarchistic camp at least philosophically if not practically... should I be pro-home-schooling? Am I pro-home-schooling? Strange thing for a maintained teacher to be considering, should have some faith in the system I am part of (a wall I am a brick of?)

My gut is that I am not pro-home schooling, just like my gut is that I am not pro going round all the farmers markets in the area hoping I can get enough stuff to run my house. But then I wonder whether I am just displaying the classic defensive behaviour that people show when faced with people doing something "better" than them?

Oh and this is a link to my burgers! Mine are the ones in the main picture, the little girl is not mine however! I am on the left of the picture in the middle of the second round of small pictures (follow that? Well done!)

Burgers!!!!

Meat-free Mondays? For a Vegetarian?

Meat-free Mondays are a concept of which I am aware, I didn't really know who or how it started it, but I knew it was an environmental/ethical movement to try to reduce the amount of meat eaten, and therefore the inhumane conditions, waste products and general unenvironmentalness that meat-eating entails. I think it's a good idea in principle. Why people think that just because they "can" they therefore "should" or "need to" eat meat with every meal is beyond me. I mean, plenty of people only used to meat once a week less than 50 years ago, why is that we now think we won't make it past the end of the day without meat?

So anyway, I would like to get involved with meat-free mondays, but as I already have meat-free mondays, and tuesdays, wednesdays, thursdays, fridays, saturdays and sundays I thought I would do animal-free mondays. I have a fairly animal free week already as I use soya milk and margarine and rarely eat honey. It's cheese, yoghurt and saturday morning boiled eggs that wreck it! As well as any ingredients in products made from these things.

Most of the time I think I should be vegan, and I ashamed to say the only reason I am not is because I can't be bothered, and I like eating out a lot. Not very moral or ethical reasons eh? Most of the time we are pretty much vegan at home, but as I say, things creep in.

So from tomorrow onwards I am doing animal-free mondays!

It was only after starting to write this post that I discovered the website for MFM:
http://www.supportmfm.org/index.cfm

And thus discovered they recommend animal free for vegetarians.

Adventures with an organic veg box!

So my first Abel&Cole organic box arrived today. It arrived just as I was leaving for work but i didn't have time to do anything with it. Even though I had looked at what was on the list I was still excited to see what had come.

I feel really good about this new lifestyle change. I hope I can keep up with all the cooking that it demands. I love the fact we are no longer buying eggs or milk from the supermarket, and hopefully the bread will be nice and will freeze well so we can buy bread from them too. I am considering giving up eggs and milk entirely, especially after reading this article which admittedly is about slaughterhouses, but the poor cows and chickens do all end up somewhere, not to mention the majority of the male offspring. I originally became vegetarian because of video footage showing (not quite as bad as) this sort of thing. I just don't want to be responsible for that sort of treatment to animals. Anyway, that is totally another post!

So, I got home and we have carrots, leaks leeks (that was a total typo, there are no leaks, that I know of, although apparently in glasgow many people's pipes are busting with all this freezing weather), potatoes, onions (although I kind of think maybe they came from somewhere else as they are not on the receipt, but they certainly weren't there when I left the house this morning!), fennel, ramiro pepper, cherry tomatoes, oranges, kiwis and bananas. I am a bit slow on the uptake and was really surprised to see the mud still on my vegies!! lol!

I am going to make leek and fennel risotto. What does fennel even taste like anyway? I have no idea whether I will even like this food, but how do you know if you don't try? I can always tell them I don't like it and then they won't send it.

Then as i was sat pondering what to do with the vegies there was a sharp knock at the door and there stood our local greengrocer, the one we used to get our veg from, but now we have a veg box...

Seems Mr Brown Eyes has bought up pretty much their entire shop! They sell lots of on-the-way-out-of-date food from health food shops, organic shizzle for dead cheap, most of our kitchen looks like a Holland & Barrett stock room at the best of times. I have no idea where this new stuff will go, it won't fit in the kitchen. I wonder what it even is!

Anyway, often to find out whether I like fennel!