Walking with basket

Another Little House on the Prairie moment. Remember the scenes of Ma walking into town with her basket of eggs to sell? This afternoon, my daughter and I walked the mile to our egg source--the outbuilding of a Mennonite home. In the summer it is a large fruit stand. In the winter, it is desolate with only the hum of the refrigerator parked close by the door. We deposited our coins into the lock box and put 2 dozen brown eggs into the basket.

Maren asked why we didn't just buy our eggs at the grocery store. I told her about the significance of buying locally (saving fuel, supporting local economy, buying organic) and that I was seeking out more local sources for other things such as meat, chicken, and goat's milk for making homemade cheese. I told her, too, about eating seasonally, how I wanted to expand the garden in the summer with her help. It was a wonderful introduction to a study she will be doing. Her art teacher is starting a book club for the fifth graders after school. Starting next week, the book they will be studying is Chew on This, which is a version of Fast Food Nation for younger readers. In the coming months, the kids will learn about food choices, the marketing that goes into fast food restaurants, where food comes from, etc. They will also try a variety of food. Maren will be ahead of the game on this count as I do serve up a wide variety of plant and animal foods. She is not shy about trying new things.

I am happy that this new program is receiving such enthusiastic response from the kids in her school. I hope I'll be able to sneak in and observe. Or maybe help out. I am not a food activist by any means, but I am slowly alligning my actions to my belief systems.

Laura, Nellie, and the Cinnamon Chicken episode

I've been rewatching all the Little House episodes with my 10-year-old daughter. We are on season nine. Anyone remember the episode in season six when Almanzo comes to town and Nellie offers to cook him dinner? She can't cook, so she enlists Laura to make Almanzo's favorite dish: cinnamon chicken. Laura has a crush on Almanzo, so she sabotages the meal by replacing the cinnamon with ground red cayenne pepper. Nellie and Almanzo take one bite of the dish and they go running for the water.
Fast-forward a couple of decades. We aren't on TV, but I am making chicken paprikash, the Hungarian chicken stew made with plenty of sweet paprika--or so I thought. I accidentally grabbed the--you guessed it--ground red cayenne pepper and added the prescribed 2 tablespoons to the simmering chicken. I guess my first clue should have been the coughing my family did as they fought the airborne pepper on their way to the dinner table. Three out of four of us managed to eat the meal with liberal glasses of milk and dollops of sour cream. I only realized my mistake halfway through dinner after my husband kept saying, "I didn't realize that paprika was so spicy."