craving chard

swiss chard, dharmagirl's trusty macbook webcam

Before returning to work in January, I treated myself to Barbara Kingsolver's delightful *Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.* She writes about food politics and the importance and experience of eating locally with an awareness of the difficulties and moral dilemmas her family and her many readers may face. These qualities, along with her lovely prose, further fired me up to do my best to eat even more mindfully, thoughtfully, and compassionately than I already do (and, I think I'm doing fairly well, not buying into the SAD--standard american diet). Still, I have miles to go before I eat, as I order chocolate from around the world and bread from Zingerman's in Ann Arbor--not exactly local, and foods that I will have an impossible time giving up as they sustain my overall well-being on these long winter days. Being amidst a deep freeze in Wisconsin does not afford many local vegetables at this time of the year. I console myself with the fact that I'm joining a CSA (community supported agriculture) this Spring, and that my dairy products are local.

Anyway, Kingsolver wrote so lovingly about Swiss Chard that suddenly, my craving for this hearty green skyrocketed. I searched my local grocery stores to no avail. I told my colleagues/friends about my Chard situation, and it seemed the only possibility was to travel to a larger city in search of this vegetable. I decided I would have to wait for my next trip to Milwaukee to find this elusive green, when, to my utter delight, I received a package from my Mom, to whom I had also bemoaned about my chardlessness. Inside I found this beautiful bouquet of rainbow chard, ready to be consumed. What a lovely surprise and perfect gift.

And so, on another sub-zero day, I will make a large pot of soup--tomato base, with garlic, a variety of herbs, cannellini beans, whole wheat pasta, and CHARD. I will eat this alongside a wedge of Paesano bread from Zingerman's and rejoice at being blessed with such thoughtful family members.

My seed catalog arrived this week, and I'm nervously dreaming of Spring and the project I'm about to undertake--growing a smattering of my own foods in containers on my deck.

And I'm writing again, squeezing in more time for journaling, working on my scholarly article/presentation, and thinking of essays that I want to polish and submit for publication. Trying to think of myself as a REAL writer, instead of someone who simply dabbles and teaches others how to write.