Gifts from the Local Food Goddess

In my eyes, all my mama friends have achieved goddess status of some sort. There's the Domestic Goddess, the Birth Advocate Goddess, the Healing Goddess... and now, I officially pronounce one of our tribe the Local Food Goddess. She is a skilled gardener on a mission to procure all her food from local sources, or by growing it herself. Eating locally is something I've been slowly moving toward for some time. And now, I'm learning from - and with - my friend how to take this step for real.

So on her rounds today, the Local Food Goddess visited our local dairy farm, which houses grass-fed cows and follows organic practices. Finding the heavy cream on sale, she called me... "Yes, of course I'll take a half-gallon of heavy cream for $2. I'll take two. And, uh, what exactly should I do with all that cream?" The answer on the other end of the line was simple: make butter.

On her way home, my friend passed a sign by the side of the road that read "Fresh Eggs for Sale." She knocked on the residential door and was shortly out back watching free-roaming chickens, happily pecking away, and showing her young boy dozens of baby chicks! Another phone call... "Yes, of course I'd like a dozen free-range, farm fresh eggs for $2.50."

So after picking my own little chicks up from school, I swung by the home of the Local Food Goddess herself to pick up my goods. As we chatted about local meat sources and how to make butter, our kids romped through her expansive garden sampling strawberries, mint & sage, purple beans and cherry tomatoes. She hacked off a huge stalk of deep green kale for me, and filled the girls' hands with fresh herbs.

I loaded up my treasures - which cost a mere $6.50 - grinning ear-to-ear. And I just had to wonder, at what point, exactly, did it come to be that cream and eggs and kale could make me so very happy?

Stay posted for my adventures in butter making.