I’m home, after 10 days in Europe. I had a wonderful time just being a tourist on vacation, but I had an even more wonderful time meeting, dining, and sharing ideas with several of the Kalmar climate coaches while in Sweden. I have so many thoughts to share, but for now, I’ll begin with writing about being home.
That’s right. After a fabulous vacation, the first thing I’m going to write about is being home.
I’m still dealing with some jet lag from my travel, so today I woke early. I realized that I needed to make a quick trip to the grocery store for a few essentials. I combined this trip with a few other necessary errands, so I don’t feel badly about driving…although I might once we move on to the transportation challenge!
I know we’re still on track with this eating local challenge. Isaiah and I continue to enjoy our farm and dairy deliveries. Since the summer fruits and vegetables are really rolling in right now, we’ve been able to cut our grocery store shopping down to less than one trip per week. We’ve been living well on pantry goods and farm deliveries. Today was no exception—it was the first grocery trip in about two weeks for our household.
I thought I’d share with you what I purchased today. You might note that I made a few missteps, though I like to think of those as products of jet lag rather than thoughtlessness. I suppose the truth lies somewhere in the middle. I was tired, but I should have been a bit more thoughtful. I bought a Diet Pepsi Max, which is a super-caffeinated version of diet soda (I don’t drink much coffee at home, but I loved the Swedish coffee breaks which Wikipedia says are called fika-paus, so rather than rush out and purchase a coffeemaker, I opted for caffeinated chemicals-yum!), and I also purchased some chocolate dipped frozen bananas as a quick and cool summer treat. I didn’t think about the better choices I might have made with those products until I unpacked my reusable shopping bags at home. That’s when it dawned on me that imported bananas and individual sodas are probably not the most eco-friendly impulse purchases I could have made. Still, I tried.
As I shopped, I remembered that the less-processed foods are better, but I did need some staples such as mustard (brown and yellow), corn flakes, powdered milk (now that I try to bake more of our bread products, I’m finding many recipes that call for this), microwave popcorn (not the best, but not the worst–and a good, quick snack for us), kosher turkey (will try to order local kosher turkey from the butcher, but it was too much for my fatigued brain to handle this morning), potatoes (not on this week’s farm delivery list), and dill (unfortunately, the dill on our balcony succumbed to what I optimistically like to call “failure to thrive”). You can’t see the tea that I bought, but if you could, you’d notice both the fair trade and organic seals on the package. Thanks to Rolf and Birgitta for making me aware of these certifications. At left is my grocery trip for our household of two.
Today’s shopping was made much easier by the fact that we got our weekly share of farm produce as well. Since Isaiah and I are a household of only two, we have opted to receive a half share of produce from the farm, so what may look meager to you is actually very generous for us. Yesterday, Isaiah harvested two perfectly ripe tomatoes from our balcony planter, and now we have quite the complement of fruits and veggies at home. From the farm we have a mother lode of peaches, with two different kinds represented. We’ve got a summer squash, a giant zucchini, a cucumber, and a head of cabbage. Above is this week’s fresh fruit and veggie allotment.
Isaiah and I were talking last night, and we really do believe that the changes we’re making as a result of Climate Pilots will stick with us. And that’s a good feeling.
by Climate Pilot Mya Akin
Climatepilots' Blog 