My daughter, Mary, has issued a challenge in response to my entry in April on "Feeding Our Families": she's going to try and start a food co-op in San Diego if I work on one in Pleasant Hill.
If anyone can do it, Mary can. I hope I can, too!
Mary already has a step in the door, since she and her husband have a weekly "shared meal" with their friends. This is what's missing in American life - friends and family getting together to share the planning, preparation, eating, and cleaning up, of a meal! Not just the women, either! The guys do just as much as the women!
Me? Nada. I'd have to start at the beginning, like advertising for people who'd like to share. That seems a little iffy. I need the co-op part of the co-op! I'm keeping my eyes and ears open. This is an idea whose time has come and I suspect the people are out there, waiting.
Showing posts with label Co-ops. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Co-ops. Show all posts
Monday, June 2, 2008
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Feeding our Families
As people with full schedules and limited budgets, how do we get everything done? I'm at a reasonable point in life: my kids are grown and out on their own, and it's just me and my husband. He works full-time, I'd like to work that much, but my business is not that busy.
Even so, we have very little free time. People with jobs and kids - whoa. You people are busy!
I remember. I raised 5 children as a single parent, and I went to college and worked full-time while I was doing it. Let's just say I was a bit more - ahem - organized, in those days. And my house wasn't real clean.
I knew a lot less about food back then, but I still knew it was important to cook my own food as much as possible and to use whole grains and limit the soda (my kids hated that!). I refused to buy sweet cereal for my kids. It was reserved for a birthday treat. Five times a year, the birthday kid could pick any cereal they wanted for all of them to eat. It was always a lot of fun to watch them hit the cereal aisle on those days!
I got up at 5:30 and read the newspaper and cooked a homemade breakfast for my kids. And for me, too - breakfast is still my favorite meal of the day. I loved waking them up and watching them sit down to a hot breakfast. I also packed lunches for them - in those days, I didn't know better and we used a lot of Little Debbie snacks. I wouldn't go near that stuff, anymore!
I cooked dinner every night and I was a master at the fast, homemade meal. Of course, we were quite poor too, so we had our share of Top Ramen, which I tried to supplement with leftover meat or frozen vegetables.
All of this is to say that I understand what families are going through. So when I preach about eating whole grains and buying local, organic produce and NEVER using processed foods, yeah, yeah, yeah...
I know what I'm asking you to do. I know it's not easy.
But I also know it's possible.
I have an idea and I'd like some input from women about it. It involves a community kitchen.
The idea is that a group of people - neighbors, co-workers, PTA, whatever - forms a co-op, of sorts. The co-op plans menus, shops for ingredients, and cooks the meals. Members can pick up their prepared meals to take home, or they could eat at the kitchen and enjoy a little social interaction.
This could be done in member's homes and the homes could rotate, so no member is stuck with all the work. Or, the co-op could rent a commercial kitchen for the purpose.
This could be carried a step further and members could grow their own vegetables, too. The co-op could buy from area farmers and ranchers, so members would have the best food available, for a much cheaper price.
There is a kitchen doing something like this in Berkeley: Three Stone Hearth. I buy from them sometimes, and I love what they are doing. I don't know how big the co-ops would have to be to make it viable, but it would be great to have hundreds of these in communities across the country. Small is better, really - so no one is tempted to industrialize the food.
So there it is. Any comments?
Even so, we have very little free time. People with jobs and kids - whoa. You people are busy!
I remember. I raised 5 children as a single parent, and I went to college and worked full-time while I was doing it. Let's just say I was a bit more - ahem - organized, in those days. And my house wasn't real clean.
I knew a lot less about food back then, but I still knew it was important to cook my own food as much as possible and to use whole grains and limit the soda (my kids hated that!). I refused to buy sweet cereal for my kids. It was reserved for a birthday treat. Five times a year, the birthday kid could pick any cereal they wanted for all of them to eat. It was always a lot of fun to watch them hit the cereal aisle on those days!
I got up at 5:30 and read the newspaper and cooked a homemade breakfast for my kids. And for me, too - breakfast is still my favorite meal of the day. I loved waking them up and watching them sit down to a hot breakfast. I also packed lunches for them - in those days, I didn't know better and we used a lot of Little Debbie snacks. I wouldn't go near that stuff, anymore!
I cooked dinner every night and I was a master at the fast, homemade meal. Of course, we were quite poor too, so we had our share of Top Ramen, which I tried to supplement with leftover meat or frozen vegetables.
All of this is to say that I understand what families are going through. So when I preach about eating whole grains and buying local, organic produce and NEVER using processed foods, yeah, yeah, yeah...
I know what I'm asking you to do. I know it's not easy.
But I also know it's possible.
I have an idea and I'd like some input from women about it. It involves a community kitchen.
The idea is that a group of people - neighbors, co-workers, PTA, whatever - forms a co-op, of sorts. The co-op plans menus, shops for ingredients, and cooks the meals. Members can pick up their prepared meals to take home, or they could eat at the kitchen and enjoy a little social interaction.
This could be done in member's homes and the homes could rotate, so no member is stuck with all the work. Or, the co-op could rent a commercial kitchen for the purpose.
This could be carried a step further and members could grow their own vegetables, too. The co-op could buy from area farmers and ranchers, so members would have the best food available, for a much cheaper price.
There is a kitchen doing something like this in Berkeley: Three Stone Hearth. I buy from them sometimes, and I love what they are doing. I don't know how big the co-ops would have to be to make it viable, but it would be great to have hundreds of these in communities across the country. Small is better, really - so no one is tempted to industrialize the food.
So there it is. Any comments?
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