daily bliss: vegan week: day five and beyond: the ethical omnivore

Day five, my last day of vegan (mini) week, began with my usual oatmeal breakfast, my morning coffee laced with So Delicious Coconut Milk Creamer. It was, to quote a slogan on a local beer, "not bad."

After a morning writing, wrapped up in a fleece blanket against the damp chill, I decided to drive to Sheboygan for lunch at one of my favorite restaurants, Field to Fork. I had already settled on the hummus and giardinera as a suitable vegan lunch, but when I arrived I saw that minestrone was one of the soup selections. 

Their soup is thick, hearty, and not tomatoey. Chunks of root vegetables and seasonal-ish squashes intermingle with beans and hearty greens. I ordered a bowl, and was surprised when it arrived garnished with a skiff of cheese. I've ordered this soup so many times, always reassured of its vegetarianness, and clearly not mindful of the cheese. 

I pushed the cheese to the side of the bowl, but it was melting into the soup anyway, a distinctive tang and sweet saltiness. 

Oh, it was delicious. 

Later that evening, Gregg and I headed to a graduation party, where we huddled outside, hands wrapped around too-cold soda cans, trying to stay warm in the unseasonable cold. We wandered into the garage (all the best Wisconsin parties include a garage) to fill our plates. Well, Gregg filled his plate with a variety of meat dishes kept warm in Nesco roasters (another ubiquitous Wisconsin party favorite), while I spooned some salsa and grabbed a handful of corn chips. Our friend T proudly told me his taco dip was vegetarian and even included a layer of beans. It looked delicious: cool, creamy, and crisp. Gregg explained that I was dairy free this week, and we walked back outside to shiver and munch. 

Restaurants and social situations challenge our dietary lifestyles. While some vegetarians and vegans choose to overtly share their politics in these moments, I usually try to eat inconspicuously. At moments like this--the restaurant, the grad party--part of me longs for a more conventional dietary lifestyle that doesn't complicate social relations. 

I realized during my vegan experiment how relatively easy it is to eat and socialize as a vegetarian--how friends make subtle modifications to foods, or how many side dishes and party foods are vegetarian friendly. Living vegan is much harder. Eggs, butter, milk, and/or cheese linger in unsuspecting foods. Especially in Wisconsin, these items are abundant on buffet tables and menus. 

On Sunday, Gregg and I, along with his parents, headed to our county's annual celebration of Dairy Month: Breakfast on the Farm. This breakfast couldn't be a starker contrast to my short week of plant-based eating. Scrambled eggs dotted with onions and ham, glued together with cheese; cinnamon bread spread with butter; donut holes; link sausage; handfuls of cheese curds, string cheese, and cheddar cubes; milk; and ice cream make this an absolute dairypalooza. 

We noshed our full plates under a big tent, listening to polka music and visiting with friends and neighbors. This year I particularly appreciated the squeaky creaminess of cheese curds. 

After our large, generous, non-plant based breakfast, we toured the farm, checking out huge farm equipment and mooing at dairy cows small and large. 

I was struck by the size of the farm--800 cattle!--and the "propaganda" displayed on tables and posters. These cows eat silage that is largely corn based, as described by a large sign. And, in another information booth, a major pharmaceutical company explained the importance of antibiotics for sick cows, and mitigated worries about the drugs entering the food system. 

After reading many books about modern agriculture, environmentalism, and humane treatment of animals, as well as the effects antibiotics have had on our ecosystem, I believe that we have harmed our animals and ecosystem in some fairly substantial ways. Cows, as ruminants, are meant to eat grass. Studies show that they need antibiotics because of their diet of corn. And, new strains of bacteria like MRSA and e. coli can be traced, in part, to the influx of antibiotics at all levels of the food chain. Bacteria are smart, mutating and resisting the drugs we create to kill them. 

Scary.

Enough to make veganism seem like a feasible, safe solution.

And yet, I love dairy. 

And, I love breakfast on the farm: the camaraderie, the community celebrating and supporting one its most storied and historical ways of life, and a huge economic force (our county has more cows that people). 

And yet, I wish we hadn't reached this point where we alter animal diets to our timeline and our production needs. Cows become machines rather than sentient beings. If we all ate a little less animal food or animal produced food, couldn't we preserve the animals' more natural ways of life? Frolicking in the sun, nibbling grass, and roaming pastures rather than bedding in sand, eating mixed silage, and standing bracketed indoors? 

I recognize that many people disagree with me and question the logic of my beliefs. I don't want to proselytize, but I do want people--including myself--to have as much information as possible and then make an educated, informed, ethics based decision on what to eat. Balancing ethics and tastes is perhaps one of the most difficult struggles we face. My mini-week of plant-based eating showed me the conflicting desires between preserving another creature's way of life and satisfying my omnivorous tastes. 

For now, I will continue to eat dairy and eggs, but I will also continue to support alternate foodways, seeking out organic, humanely sourced milk, eggs, and cheeses, recognizing that this is, for me, a necessity, for which I will pay higher costs. (and that touches on another tangent about the cost of such foods and the critique that such foods are the provenance of the "wealthy." Despite what you may have heard about professor salaries, I am not wealthy, but I do try to spend my values, to put my money where my values and ethics are, recognizing yet again that not everyone has this capability.)

Thanks to my readers for following along and sharing thoughtful comments that supported and challenged me throughout my mini-week. 

And thanks to Gregg, who ate vegan dinners with me all week long:)

berry bliss

1890 watercolor painting from wikipedia, from the National Agricultural Library of the United States Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service.

I've waxed poetic about strawberries before...and I've been waiting a very long time, about 11 months, to experience berry bliss yet again. I was worried that the torrential rainfall and flooding would drown the berries or turn them into a watery mess, but behold, the season's first fruit...

My friend B brought me a handful of berries from the farmer's market (which I missed because I was teaching Upward Bound students how to read a poem), and I waited until after dinner to taste the first one. The color--plush red. The fragrance--warm and floral. The texture--melting and soft. The flavor--delicate, nuanced, and sweet. Ahhh!

And so I tucked the remaining berries back in the fridge, and when I returned home from class (teaching college students the satiric pleasures of Candide), I spooned some plain cream top brown cow yogurt in a bowl, topped it with sliced berries, and a sprinkle of turbinado sugar. Oh holy bliss.

A few weeks ago I had a conversation with a colleague about why I only eat local strawberries. She was confused and I don't think my tentative explanations--of something I'm so passionate about--made a dent in her consciousness. How do I have food politics discussions without seeming pretentious or elitist? How can I communicate my passion for eating locally, seasonally, ecologically, and deliciously, without alienating people I care about in some capacity, and don't want to offend?

And I'm saddened that the berries don't speak for themselves. How many people have REALLY tasted a strawberry as it's meant to taste? Not bred for travel and color only, not communicated via "natural" or artificial flavors, but the berry itself, in its most berry-ness state of being.

I want, to quote Alice Waters, a delicious revolution for everyone. And berry bliss galore:)

wet wisconsin weekend: polka mass and breakfast on the farm

This weekend has overflowed with rain, but more importantly, with Wisconsin Culture. My new state of residence has many rich traditions that I've been fortunate enough to witness.

Yesterday I attended Polka Mass with my friends A and The Beard. A explained afterwards that many parts of the mass are usually quieter, encouraging more serious reflection, but with the oompa-loompa of the polka band, the entire mass seemed a jolly affair. The church was packed--kids wearing Packers jerseys, cute old couples wielding umbrellas, and nuns wearing an abbreviated, modern habit.

Check out this YouTube video clip for a taste of polka mass:


After dancing at a colleague's retirement party and staying up entirely too late skimming an improbable and highly transparently plotted romance novel, I fell into a half-sleep, awaking early this morning ruing the two glasses of inexpensive wine I indulged in at the aforementioned soiree. I brewed a mug of strong, thick coffee, and pulled out my raincoat, stuffing my trusty 35 mm camera and tracfone in the pockets. I met A and The Beard, as well as A's parents, for our next Wisconsin adventure: Breakfast on the Farm.
courtesy of the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board


This annual event usually draws upwards of 5,000 participants, who line up for shuttles on yellow and black school buses comandeered by jokesters with Yooper accents, pay six dollars to receive a cow handstamp and a dairy-centric breakfast, and dine on the farm.

We dodged raindrops as we scurried into the Feeding Barn, where men stirred huge skillets of eggs to a gooey scramble, studded with diced ham and cemented with copious amounts of cheese. Women doled out generous portions of eggs, and servers also offered handfuls of cheese cubes, segments, and curds; cinnamon bread with fresh butter pats; cherry flavored donut holes; and egg-cellent accoutrements. Another tent featured dishes of vanilla ice cream topped with strawberries or the farm's own maple syrup.

We trekked through rivulets of mud and thickening crowds to a sturdy tent filled with picnic tables, and sat down to enjoy the mostly bovine-produced repast. A cheerful band stopped playing old standards just long enough to introduce the family of the farm, as well as crown the dairy princesses and Alice-in-Dairyland.

I watched as families sat down together to share food, boy scouts wandered the aisles in search of empty plates to throw away, and young people proudly wearing FFA, 4H, and/or John Deere gear congregated on the sidelines. I felt thankful that these young people will carry on the largely invisible, under-appreciated, grossly underpaid, and altogether vital work of feeding us for the next generation

We wandered to a beautiful tall red barn where local vendors displayed pamphlets and disseminated information about dairy and other agriculture issues, and barn swallows tweeted and twittered from one rafter to the next. Here I learned that my adopted county has 6,000 more cows than humans.

As I rode the bus back to the parking lot, I felt homesick--struck by the beauty and deep, rich culture of this place that still doesn't feel like home. I still feel like an outsider, a cultural anthropologist of sorts, with my heart and soul still somewhat unattached from this place and its very kind people.

Last night one of my colleagues stated that my new home and Holland, where I grew up, are very similar. He then revised his statement to use Muskegon as his Western Michigan point of reference, and in some ways I can see the connection: the manufacturing history, the flight from manufacturing, the prevalence of Christianity, agricultural links, and strong ties to European heritage. But somehow, it seems much more different to me--the prevalence of sports culture (Green Bay Packers), the different version of Christian faith (Catholicism versus Christian Reformed), the more progressive politics (though no less confounding than the conservatism of Western Michigan). And where am I in this comparison? At times firmly aligned with one place or the other, and at times aligned with someplace far away. The process of acculturation is long, slow, and filled with tumultuous emotions and surprising discoveries, and I hope this summer offers me more moments of cultural richness in which I can connect more fully to the spirit of this place.

a day at the farm: saxon creamery

photo taken by J.K. and ever so graciously shared with me

"Eating is an agricultural act," writes agrarian philosopher and author Wendell Berry. I've been thinking about the ethics and practice of eating lately, partly because I'm coordinating our campus' Common Theme for next year. We've selected the tagline "It's Easy Being Green" to energize folks on campus to think and act more sustainably. The theme will be carried out through intellectual inquiry, classroom tie-ins, practical changes, and nifty programming. I can't wait! Truth be told, I'm more than a little nervous to be coordinating this initiative, but I have so much help that I know it will be a collective effort and it will be wonderful.

My personal focus for the project (because I can't possible DO everything, just coordinate everything) is two-fold: green food issues and eco-literature. One of the primary goals of the green food issue is to explore local food connections. So, when I recently received an email from the Southeast Wisconsin Slow Food Convivium inviting me to tour a local dairy farm, I quickly signed up and invited my friends.

And so, on a windswept Saturday in mid-may, A, J, and I drove to Saxon Creamery in Cleveland, Wisconsin for a morning of tasting and touring. Our tour began with a brief history of the farm; you can check out their excellent website for more information on their history and excellent cheeses. We then toured the production facility, a spotless and cool converted beer warehouse (only in Wisconsin, right?). We peered through a series of windows to see the gleaming stainless equipment, white cheese-shaping molds, and marveled at 16 pound wheels of cheese floating in salt-water brine baths. Racks of cheeses lined the last room, the aging room, where the temperature and humidity is carefully monitored to simulate a cave.

While we were touring the facility, Elise had shaved off generous slices of the three cheeses: Big Ed, Saxony, and Grassfields. When Jerry brought us back into the front room, we enjoyed endless slices of cheese, trying to detect the subtle differences in the cheeses, from the sweet&salty Big Ed, to the nutty Saxony, to the creamy&buttery&tangy Grassfields. I love each of the cheeses and have a hard time settling on a favorite, though later that day I bought a wedge of the Saxony (for comparison, think of a mountain cheese, like and aged Fontina). Jerry surprised us all with bottles of maple syrup from the farm as take-aways.

We then drove through downtown Cleveland, bustling with Saturday morning rummage sales and the quintessential Wisconsin celebration, the Brat Fry. After driving over the interstate, we pulled over on the side of the road, and saw the farm spread before us under billowing clouds. To our right was a ten acre woodlot (home of the maple syrup) and surrounding us were fields of grass and specks of cows far in the distance.

Our tour concluded at the farmstead, where Jerry explained the seasonal process of breeding, and how calves are taught/encouraged to pasture. We gazed at a small field filled with adorable calves gently mooing and staring at us (likely wondering what the dumb humans were up to now). One paricular caramel colored calf stared straight at us, looking happy and sweet.

We then traipsed over to the farmstead where Jerry explained what each of the red wood buildings was used for, and then took us into the milk parlor. This milking facility is modeled after New Zealand farms, where the comfort of the cows is paramount and human comfort is secondary.

Jerry's passion for pastured, grass-fed dairy is palpable, and his dedication to this particular farm and its bounty is deep. His message to us was to supprt farms such as his and to support our local communities. Education and knowledge about our food has the power to change all of our lives--producers and consumers.

I don't feel virtuous or self-righteous as much as I feel committed to truly knowing this place where I now live. And I feel a deep gratitude to the farmers whose labor is invisible in the foods that grace my plate so many times each day. I want to really think about the lives that have contributed to my food--human and non-human alike--and to truly appreciate and support them through the power of my fork.

meta-narration

Happy Birthday to my Dad! I listened to Rascal Flatts' "My Wish" in his honor (he gave my brother and me the CD last fall because that song made him think of us, so sweet). It's an apt song for a time of transition...

Thanks to Laura's encouraging words and a long walk today when all I could write was page after page of dialogue (do these people never shut up?!?), I have developed a narrative structure to allow for the characters' place-based po-mo fluidity. Scarily enough, it involves drawing on some po-mo theory of identity/subjectivity/narrative...which will work wonderfully with a *surprise* meta-narrative device that fell into the story last week. And, Lily's (heroine) Mom happens to be a professor, so this structure can work into the existing character pool and plot...now, if I can only correctly remember the aforementioned po-mo theory from my grad school days when it was de rigueur...

Last night I cooked my first meal of the season using exclusively local produce! Well, not local by locavore standards, but from the greater Holland area where I bought my fruits and veggies at the outstanding farmer's market. I'm reading *The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter* by Peter Singer and Jim Mason and thinking about the many implications, personal and political (which are inseperable, yes?), of what we choose to consume. I'll have a whole post on that soon enough. Anyway, the book is as transformative a read as Michael Pollan's *The Omnivore's Dilemma* was last year. Whereas Pollan made me more emotionally connected, Singer and Mason engage a much more complex, analytical perspective. They resist simple platitudes, like the "local, sustainable, organic" mantra, by exploring the multi-faceted ethical quandries such decisions pose.

Finally, my excitement grows for my scouting trip to WI this weekend. Serendipitously, my future colleagues are having a party so I'll have a chance to meet everyone again, this time without the pressure of an 11 hour interview. Yes, 11 hours. (I hope to convince my PhD Friends to blog with me about the insane rigors of The Academic Job Search, in which the full story of that day might be revealed, but I'm afraid our potential blogging will get bogged down in the act of naming. I'm fond of MLAgirl, but know that would only engender a discussion of girl v. woman v. womyn v. grrrl. I miss such debates!)