Wednesday

Discovery of the day: Tracking it back

Poking around on the Casual Kitchen blog the other day, I found Daniel's post on Stacked Costs and Second Order Foods. I had read it when it was new but had forgotten about it. In hindsight, it was one of the factors that pushed me onto the Make It Myself path. Purchasing as many first-order foods as possible appealed to me on a very basic level.

Maybe it's because I grew up during the Cold War and always was reading books like 'The Boxcar Children' and 'Little House on the Prairie' where folks had to 'make it or do without.' Sure, I grew up with Shake-a-Puddin' and casseroles made with cream of mushroom soup just like (almost) everyone else of my generation, but in the back of my mind was always this notion of figuring out how to make things myself.

As I got older and read more science fiction & fantasy than could be considered strictly healthy, I was drawn to the 'after the bomb' and other post-apocalyptic tales where people had to start over from nothing. Because of this urge, I learned to knit, and eventually to spin and dye yarn. I learned to make soap and at one point I even had a small business selling it. I learned cake decorating (although I'm not sure how that relates to this discussion, but hey, you never know.) Hell, I even raised chickens for awhile, and I'm a city girl! Unfortunately, I've learned the hard way that I'm too lazy to be a good gardener or you can bet I'd be all over that too.

The yarn and soap and cake and chickens have faded into the past, but Daniel's concept of First Order foods must have pushed that button again. Read it and tell me you don't at least think about what you buy and what you might be able to make.