This August, I spent a lot of time working – a lot of time. I try to remind myself that busy is not a virtue and 5 hours of sleep a night is rotten for my health, but this is a long struggle I still seem to have trouble with. Most of the time, I spent touring farms, working on the cookbook and preserving mountains of food that arrives by CSA each week.
Next week we’re headed out to Virginia to visit family and to checkout Polyface Farms. Following that, my husband and I are putting together a farm-to-table dinner for 300 people as part of our community’s annual harvest celebration (I can’t help but lose my breath in panic when I think about it). I’m hoping things will settle in after that.
Until then, I thought I’d share with you some of the things that made me smile this August.
My Favorite Things in August
- Supporting the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund with my donation in their annual fundraiser.
- Booking a flight to go visit Joel Salatin’s Polyface Farm (Today is the LAST day to register for the event and all proceeds support the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund).
- Working on the Nourished Kitchen Cookbook (due out in Spring of 2014 by Ten Speed Press).
- Developing gorgeous new recipes for the book like Fermented Fennel, Kohlrabi and Green Apple Relish (pictured above.)
- Seeing a full gallon of said relish devoured at a local potluck last night (you know it’s good when even those with no clue about traditional foods can’t get enough.)
- Helping a new mama in the neighborhood get a good handle on real food for her baby (with the help of the Nourished Baby e-book).
- Reminding you that today is also the LAST day to order Nourished Baby at a 20% discount. (Just use coupon code SUPERMAMA).
- Taking the advice of Donna Gates from the Body Ecology Diet on starting each day with clean water and sour fruit juice. Gotta tell you – I love it even more than GAPS.
- Preserving this years harvest with Spice Peach Butter (recipe coming), Plum Jam, Apple Pear Sauce, Super Green Veggie Powder, Tomato Sauce, Melon Leathers, Peach Leathers, Peach Powder, Pesto, Homemade Sauerkraut, Sour Pickles, and countless other dehydrated and fermented vegetables.
- Fighting the good fight against fracking. Read this take on how doctors treating fracking victims aren’t even allowed to tell them what chemicals are making them sick.
- Speaking of the good fight – have you weighed in on California’s Prop 37 on Genetically Modified Foods?
- Checking out this new e-book on the Eczema Cure.
- Getting motivated to start making my own natural bodycare products. Whipped Body Butter is first on the list.
- Followed by homemade deodorant.
- Though I’m still not giving up my new Grass-fed Tallow Body Balm or my face cream made from fermented cod liver oil or my unrefined shea butter. (You can read more about my take on personal care products here.)
- It’s a special lucky 7 birthday for my little guy in a about a week, and I’m skipping coconut flour cake this year in favor of this yellow butter cake.
- But I’m not giving up coconut flour entirely – especially since I want to make this coconut flour banana bread (umm … wow!)
- Pinning like crazy (follow me here) and putting up boards on GAPS and Grain-free Baking, Not-so-awful Offal, Soups and Stews, Sourdough and Old-fashioned Remedies.
- Planning our annual farm-to-table harvest feast and hoping it doesn’t get shut down like this one.
My comment is late b/c I am checking out a few posts I’ve missed — but out of curiosity, because I have experience with both, I would love to hear you expound more on what/why you like Body Ecology better than GAPs.
I like it better, because I think it takes a more well-rounded approach with the inclusion of plant foods that aren’t introduced on GAPS until much, much later. I’m not behind all the emphasis in GAPS on coconut/almond breads and things like that. They can also be hard to digest, and I think you’re better off with a bit of new potato or buckwheat. There are two things I’m not 100% behind with BED: lack of emphasis on bone broths as a source of healing (you can have them, and they’re great, but they’re not really emphasized) and the use of sugar substitutes (even in minute quantities).