Quick food and slow thinking!

That pumpkin purée I made on Sunday has been sitting in the fridge waiting to be used, and since eggs are in plentiful supply hereabouts I decided on an evening when I was too tired to do anything too involved to put two and two together to make a quick and satisfying meal of them.

I think possibly because of my sister in the USA being pumpkin mad, I tend to think America when I think pumpkin, which went together with two and two to make the concept of pancakes. This is just the weird way my mind works...

So I thought, what if you make a sort of Yorkshire pudding mix and just add pumpkin purée to it? That'd make a more substantial pancake - that was the theory anyway. I ended up making a batter out of about 5 tbsp of maize flour (still thinking America), 4 tbsp of pumpkin purée, 3 eggs and a glass of milk, plus seasoning. When cooked it came out a bit more like omelette than pancake - probably less egg would make it more pancake-like, on reflection - and it looked like this:

You can see how I chopped it into more manageably flip-able bits - I did this amount again, and we ate it with the eggs and bacon you can see keeping warm on there. The whole thing was only about 15 minutes from conception to table, and my youngest's comment was "it's strange but nice to have pancake that actually has flavour of its own and doesn't need to be drenched in sugar". Which I'm taking as a good review.

I've decided to take action on the coffee issue, as I have to just accept that I'm hopelessly caffeine addicted and this isn't likely to change anytime soon. But I don't want to feed that addiction at other people's expense, so I looked around for a good place to get my fix from that didn't break the conscience, and came across Union Direct Trade. I've subscribed to their monthly "Roastmaster" thing, which should keep me supplied with a pleasantly varied caffeine experience - I'll let you know how it goes when I get my first shipment!

One of the things that's emerging from this project is that I'm coming to appreciate things more and more. I'm being forced to really think about what goes into each thing I buy, the supply chains and basically the "true cost" of it, and more and more I'm refusing to accept "bargains" where I know someone else is paying the price for the bargain I get - usually someone who can afford that price a hell of a lot less than I can.

Luxuries are genuinely feeling like luxuries - I'm getting higher quality stuff, with accompanying fair price tags (fair to me and to the producer), and getting them much less often, and because of that, really understanding that they are luxuries, so that things really feel special. Having less of them doesn't make me feel like I'm missing out, sacrificing or going without anything - it's more like I've dumped someone I had a meaningless, casual relationship with for someone that offers a deep, spiritual bond that gets stronger and more meaningful as time goes on.

Some of the things that aren't luxuries but just everyday items, now I'm getting them from right near my doorstep and personally speaking to the people who produce them and seeing for myself the labour and care that goes into them, it's just making me respect these things so much more so that even they feel like luxuries, and I feel lucky and privileged to enjoy them. 

The other day I picked up a bit of scrap wool off the floor and found myself reluctant to throw it away. I thought of the sheep, generations of them, grazing there and the couple that work so hard rearing them and trying to make a living by honest work and trade, and how these sheep basically live their lives for the pure purpose of giving us this wool, then they lay down their lives to give us nourishing meat - lives they wouldn't have lived out in freedom on that beautiful pasture if it weren't for us wanting their wool and meat. Suddenly this wool felt almost like a sacred thing that mustn't be lightly wasted or tossed aside

I wonder really that anyone can put a price on it at all. It pains me to think of how I took it all for granted before, and didn't really think about all that goes into the things I "consume", how this whole society is geared towards fostering that disconnected, ungrateful attitude, that sense of entitlement to have it all, right now, my way, for peanuts - and the impact of it on everything and everyone - how it all comes back on we ourselves as we see our world falling to wrack and ruin in every sphere - social, political, environmental and economic.

And I think, when everyone's so disconnected and detached from their "place", and from the very things they depend on for their lives, is it any wonder that people don't feel any inclination to get involved in issues that must seem to them like they only affect "other people"? That detachment has been programmed and fostered into us all by a lifetime of media programming and conditioning that tells us to just "look after me and mine" as if caring for the world and caring for themselves and their loved ones are two seperate things... it's just too sad for words.

What I'm getting out of this project is a sense of there being two kinds of consumer - one who consumes in the neutral or positive sense, in that they take and use what they need and put back a balanced return, developing constructive relationships with the other parts of the web it's a part of. And another kind that's more like a sort of toxic parasite, voraciously moving through the land, chewing it all up and casting it aside, leaving trails of destruction and desolation behind them - that's the kind of consumer that capitalism wants us all to be, and has indeed made most of us into. It's the kind I refuse to be any more. I want my children and grandchildren to have a chance to live in a better world, not one that's been completely ruined.

And on that note, I'm off to get some dinner!