Food

Eating Consciously Podcast: Shane Bellinger interviews Jacqui Edans of Rooster Head Farms

Welcome to our third podcast in the Eating Consciously series.  In this episode, Shane Bellinger, owner of Green Go Cleaning and member of the Eating Consciously team interviews Jacqui Edans of Rooster Head Farms in Brevard, NC.  Our last episode was focused on systemic racism which included a conversation on factory meat operations.  This episode shows another side of the meat industry on a different scale.  Eating Consciously focuses on the impact our food choices have on others.  This episode continues to educate towards that goal.  Thanks for being here.  We hope you enjoy the show.  Many thanks to Shane and Jacqui for sharing this conversation with us. Farmer Jacqui Shane with her family

By |2020-09-22T11:59:05-04:00September 10th, 2020|Categories: Compost Drop-off Location, Composting, Connecting with nature, Eating Consciously, Food, Growing food, Help a Neighbor, Podcast, Shane Bellinger|
Read More

We need more community food scrap drop-off sites. Interested? We will help

Growing food usually requires soil.  Nutrients in the soil get used up when we grow food and luckily for us, an easy way to rebuild the soil is through making compost.  We have taken on a new community project with a few other groups that involves giving plant starts to those who are in need of food.  We usually have enough pots, plant starts, and volunteers but we usually need more soil. We currently have 2 publicized community compost drop off places in our community and we could use a few more.  If you are interested in helping us build more soil please let us know. Do you currently compost at home but have no use for the soil?  Let us know!  We could sure use it. Would you collect your food scraps for use if someone would pick them up and take them to a drop-off location?  Let us know that too. Send an email to [email protected] and let's talk dirt :)

By |2020-08-30T14:58:51-04:00August 30th, 2020|Categories: Compost Drop-off Location, Composting, Eating Consciously, Food, Growing food, Help a Neighbor, Moving to Zero-waste, Use Food Scraps|
Read More

Interested in a local plant-based food chef preparing meals for you?

Since we have started the Eating Consciously project, I have learned that factory produced meats are not something I can support anymore.  While we do still consume some meat products in our home, mostly bone broths, we have substantially cut back.  I have to admit it was something I never thought I would do.  I didn't feel I was getting what I needed from a plant-based diet until 2 things happened. Fermenting The first thing that had a significant impact on our home-cooked meals was learning to ferment from Noel's classes.  We bought a few books on the topic and learned to make fermented blueberries and tomato water.  That changed everything.  It brought a depth of flavor we were missing and our bodies love the ferment!  Everything works better. Exploring the depth of plant-based cooking Another thing that has helped us was learning the depth of things you can do with plants.  "I never knew you could do that with flaxseed!" I told John.  It has been really [...]

By |2020-08-30T14:32:42-04:00August 30th, 2020|Categories: Eating Consciously, Food, Help a Neighbor, Kathryn Parker, Shane Bellinger|
Read More

Free fermenting classes

This is something that is near and dear to my heart and I have discussed with the Shockey’s, my fermenting gurus and friends. So in spite of their world being turned upside down with COVID they are still walking the talk and trying to connect with those folks in most need. Scroll down to the bottom paragraphs and you will see what I mean.   We hope this finds you well. For the last few months we have been working on getting two special fermentation classes up. One is a Master Class that includes 7 techniques, a number of videos and a full color workbook with recipes. This class has so much for both a seasoned fermenter as well as brand new fermenters. The other class is very basic fermentation and is 100% FREE. FREE? What you say? Why? Let us explain.  Microbes are everywhere and key to nearly every natural process. They were on the Earth first, long before our farthest common ancestors existed, and they will likely be here [...]

By |2020-08-24T11:07:15-04:00August 24th, 2020|Categories: Eating Consciously, Food, Food preservation, Gatherings, Help a Neighbor, Use Food Scraps|
Read More

Eating Consciously, Eating Seasonally, Eating Locally

Another favorite of the nightshade family is the pepper: there are hundreds of kinds, ranging from super sweet to hellishly hot. I’ll focus on the sweet. Many do not like green bell peppers and for good reason: they are green, are not ripe and can be bitter. One can find in the grocery stores ripe bell peppers that are red, yellow and orange but chances are these took an international trip before getting to the store. Like tomatoes, peppers of all kinds are planted in the late spring once the soil and ambient temperature are warm. It takes about 2 months for a pepper to become green and ‘ripe’ enough to eat. To get to the full ripe state of red, orange or yellow takes another month. The fruit are heavy and require some effort to support so farmers are often ready to pick green and sell. So what does one do if one wants a pepper with color and sweetness? Plant Lunchbox Peppers! Not only are the [...]

By |2020-08-24T10:57:06-04:00August 24th, 2020|Categories: Eating Consciously, Food, Growing food, Noel Thurner, Recipe|
Read More

Thank you Whistlestop Market for helping us feed hungry children and selling in bulk

Whistlestop Market in Cedar Mountain has been ordering bulk products for us since November.  We are able to get almost anything we use to get from the Hendersonville Coop closer to home and many times at a saving. Many of us have been working with Rooster Head Farm to feed the hungry around their farm. Many from Conservers has donated money and time to help.  Thank you!  As it became obvious that this was going to be a long term project, several in the community came together to find a different way to help that did not involve Jacqui having to do all the shopping, transport, food preparation, and distribution. John and I do almost all of our grocery shopping through Whistlestop and before COVID we were sharing bulk food purchases with those in Conservers who were interested.  When we asked if we could buy bulk packages of meatless hot dogs, buns, peanut butter and jelly, and anything else they said sure!  Not only did they order the [...]

By |2020-08-24T12:09:04-04:00August 24th, 2020|Categories: Eating Consciously, Essential workers, Food, Help a Neighbor|
Read More

Eating Consciously Podcast: Systemic racism and how I participate

John and I have decided we need to learn how we support systemic racism.  We decided to start by looking at our food choices and that led us to ask a team of individuals in our community if they would help us learn about the impact of our food choices have on others.  We also asked if they could guide us based on their expertise.  Thus started the project Eating Consciously. We decided to start a podcast with the project as a way to bring people closer together in our socially-distanced world.  This is the second episode of the podcast and it goes over an hour.  I interviewed Naeema Muhummad of the NC Environmental Justice Network.  It was a tough interview to do.  The stories she tells, and there are many, are hard to hear.  Every part of the interview touched me and it made it difficult to cut out parts of the conversation.  It is well worth a listen, in my humble opinion. Naeema invited us [...]

By |2020-09-10T15:41:32-04:00August 21st, 2020|Categories: Connecting with nature, Eating Consciously, Essential workers, Food, Growing food, Help a Neighbor, Podcast|
Read More

Spending a few hours with friends while enjoying a cooking class in Cedar Mountain

[et_pb_section fb_built="1" _builder_version="3.0.47"][et_pb_row _builder_version="3.0.48" background_size="initial" background_position="top_left" background_repeat="repeat"][et_pb_column type="4_4" _builder_version="3.0.47"][et_pb_text _builder_version="3.0.74" background_size="initial" background_position="top_left" background_repeat="repeat"]   On Sunday April 7th, Val Gerdes, of Whistlestop Market, Tin Roof Pizza and the DFR Room took time out of her beyond busy schedule to teach us a few “chef tricks” on how to use food scraps in cooking. It started with raw potato skins and ended with an amazing meal, all in attendance were sent home with, courtesy of Whistlestop Market. We arrived with a jar to bring caramel home with and left with potato skin appetizers, chicken and dumplings, apple crisp and homemade caramel. Thank you Whistlestop Market for feeding us! The class was free and we all donated money to the Cedar Mountain Community Center, at the request of Val. The Community Center looks amazing. Volunteers have been working hard to get it ready foranother year of community gatherings, potlucks and rentals.     [/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]

By |2019-04-04T19:08:22-04:00April 4th, 2019|Categories: Food, Moving to Conservers, Use Food Scraps|
Read More

The Use Food Scraps Symposium was amazing!

Thanks to everyone who made it possible and attended. They say a picture is worth 1000 words so I thought I would share some. I will follow up with details from each day. For now, please enjoy some pictures. You can see a great article about the essay contest winners in The Transylvania Times here:  https://www.transylvaniatimes.com/story/2019/04/01/news/essay-winners-tackle-what-to-do-with-food-scraps/40205.html Many thanks to them for the coverage!      

By |2019-04-02T19:12:51-04:00April 2nd, 2019|Categories: Food, Moving to Conservers, Use Food Scraps|
Read More

Use Food Scraps Education Day Classes

Use Food Scraps Saturday's education and entrepreneur support day is coming together wonderfully.  Here is a list of the classes and offerings during the day.  Thanks to everyone who is making this possible! Title: Compost Demystified Instructor: Leif Olson 10 am - 12 pm Creating rich fertile soil is one of the most important activities we can do as people, and compost production is one of the best ways to do this.  However, not all compost is created equal and people following textbook prescriptions often fall short of making top quality compost. The good news is, with a basic understanding of the art of building a compost pile and the science of what’s going on inside the pile, anyone can create top-notch compost in their backyard that will surpass the quality of anything that can be purchased at a gardening store.  Not to mention the added bonus of diverting waste streams like food scraps, coffee grounds, and cardboard from burdening our landfills and recycling facilities. In this workshop [...]

By |2019-03-24T16:00:53-04:00March 24th, 2019|Categories: Food, Moving to Conservers, Use Food Scraps|
Read More
© Copyright 2012 - | Avada Theme by Theme Fusion | All Rights Reserved | Powered by WordPress
Facebook
Toggle Sliding Bar Area
Go to Top