Though I have tons to write about with Spring in full effect and seeds sprouting like crazy- I wanted to take a moment to draw attention to a cool cooking series by a woman who lived through the Great Depression. The series can be found here. Her name is Clara, she is 93. She shows you how to make food on the cheap while telling engaging stories about her life. The food is very modest as can be expected but it provides a great framework for thinking about making food that can feed a family. I would not used canned goods but her methods reflect the era she was raised in.

We may not be in a full on Depression but many have been hard hit by the severe recession. As with many around us, Dipak and I have made a distinct shift from eating out to cooking mostly at home. As should be obvious from my blog, I am clearly interested in growing our food at home and using traditional methods to store the food for year long consumption. We are beginning a project to assess the money saved with growing food, gray water and water catchment systems, and preserving (no data available yet). A recent example, I purchased four baskets of organic Chandler strawberries from a farmer I quite like at the local Farmers Market. She gave them to me for $13 ($3.25 each). We ate one basket full with friends and I made jam with the other three. We got five 8 oz jars of jam out of the batch. An 8oz. jar of organic strawberry jam made from local goods goes for $3.5-$4.5. Ours came to $2.35, including the 1 cup of sugar used (~$.44). This cost does not include the fuel to run the stove for 40 minutes (two burners: one low heat; one high). We used recycled Mason jars and no transportation costs for the jam once made (I walked the strawberries from the market, we drove the sugar from Cosco). If we look at the cost from a “neo-classical economy” perspective, we can include happiness in our calculation and say that the satisfaction of knowing we supported a local farmer, that our food contains no synthetic chemicals, and that there are only three simple ingredients- strawberries, sugar and lemons juice from out own lemon, increases the value. And what the hell, throw in LOVE as a pricey factor in the equation because the jam was made with love for so many things (strawberries, the color red, the sun, my husband, my health, my sanity…) its got to increase the value.