Thursday, August 2: Day 2

Scott here. One thing that has quickly become apparent is how reliant we become (or at least I have become) on my regular foods. I have to adjust my psychology for this project because I am feeling that if I can't get the foods I'm accustomed to that I am not getting enough to eat. When you figure that we're cooking just about everything in bacon grease it seems obvious that we're not going to starve, but when you are convinced you are hungry for X, it does not matter how much of Y you eat, you still crave X. Not sure how long it will take to break the old habits. For me, it's quality bread (I was getting close, but then I ran out of flour, more on the way Saturday), protein (yogurt is OK, but meat is really where it's at) and on these sizzling hot summer days, sweet drinks (lemonade is my favorite, but luckily I also love cider).

Our menu today:
Toast and cider for breakfast (pictured with the homemade peanut butter with the bacon grease—yum!).









Lunch was a hodge-podge of cauliflower, eggs (from friends), potatoes (Driftless Organics), Canadian Bacon (Pecatonica Valley Farm), melon (Old Stage Vegetable Gardens) and cucumbers (from our neighbors across the street).









Dinner was fabulous Italian sausages (again from Pec Valley Farm), a pile of sweet corn (Old Stage Vegetable Gardens), green beans (some home grown, some from JenEhr farm), and a bit of homemade toast.


We have an ongoing project to make cider vinegar. We let the cider go hard for a week or so, and today we introduced the Mother of Vinegar to turn the alcohol into acid. Not sure if it will work fast enough to be of use, but we'll see. We also allowed an exception—we have some spoiled red wine that comes from outside the radius, but we figured that the karma was better in putting spoiled food to use than just throwing it away, so that's going to be vinegar, too.(SCL)