Eager Anticipation

I'm in Atlanta right now doing school stuff, but I keep thinking about Cafe Davis and eagerly anticipating getting home to check on all of the "crops." At last count, we had 268 plants in the ground or sprouting in trays. Mike has since acquired more in the time I've been out of town. I know that all of them won't make it, but I feel just like a kid waiting to see how well the plants all fare. I'm particularly happy about my herb garden in front of our house. There are 60+ plants there, and I even mulched and made them as pretty as I could. I feel kind of like a dork, being so into my edible landscaping and all, and really I probably am a dork. Please have patience with me! ;) Here at Emory they are doing a "sustainable gardening" project and have little garden patches planted in visually appealing displays around campus. I spent a little while admiring the plot in front of Cox Hall a few days ago - the vegetables all look so healthy, AND pretty. When I hear about rising food prices and food shortages, I can't help but think of all of the land that is wasted on lawns and flower gardens that could accommodate vegetables and grains and fruit. Why do people tend to think that tomato plants don't belong in their home landscape? At $3.99 a pound or whatever tomato prices are these days, it just doesn't make sense NOT to plant a $1.75 plant that will yield pounds and pounds and pounds of fresh produce that can be canned or frozen for the lean winter months. But I digress... this is just my sustainable eating soap box for the moment. Thanks for listening.

I know what you really care about is the actual eating part of Cafe Davis. And eat, we shall! I have the menu all set. It took a solid day of sitting on the couch surrounded by cookbooks, but hopefully all of that time and toil will be worth it. I think I've come up with a pretty diverse menu that will make the most of the local bounty I anticipate. Fridays are reserved for vegetarian meals, but the menu on many "meat" days could easily be adapted for vegetarians and vegans alike. As usual, if you need any accommodations for dietary restrictions or allergies, always always let me know. I am happy to do anything to meet your needs.

One final note - I got a message today from Polyface that it's time to call the butcher about the hog. Nothing really else to report there - just an FYI. I've got to do a little hog butchering research to figure out exactly what I want. If anyone else out there has any experience with this, please feel free to share your wisdom.

Oh, one final, final note... I broke the camera. I have some old pictures still to upload, and hopefully we can remedy this lack of camera thing before Cafe Davis gets underway. If not, please feel free to bring your own camera and share your pictures with me! Thanks!