FOODIE FRIDAY: Meet “The Feast Nearby”‘s Robin Mather! Pt. 2

Welcome to FOODIE FRIDAY! For the month of September, we’ll be celebrating “THE FEAST NEARBY,” the latest book release by my friend, ROBIN MATHER. Today’s blog features Part 2 of our Q&A with Robin. (You can read Part 1 of the Q&A here: https://paulayoo.com/blog/?p=899)

ROBIN MATHER is a veteran food columnist and journalist, as well as a non-fiction book author. I met her when we both wrote for The Detroit News back in the early ’90s. Her food column at the News always made me hungry! She often used food as a metaphor to discuss larger life issues. That tradition continues with her latest book, THE FEAST NEARBY: How I lost my job, buried a marriage, and found my way by keeping chickens, foraging, preserving, bartering, and eating locally (all on forty dollars a week) (Ten Speed Press ’11). For more info, go here: http://thefeastnearby.com/

Part 2 of our two-part Q&A is posted today. Stay tuned for a special recipe from Robin Mather for our Foodie Friday blog to be posted on Fri. 9/23. Many thanks to Robin for taking time out of her busy schedule to join us every FOODIE FRIDAY for the month of September! 

During the month of September, I’ll also be hosting a book giveaway contest where you have the chance to win a signed copy of Robin’s book! You can participate simply by letting me know via our COMMENTS section or by emailing me at paula at paulayoo dot com with your contact info. I will collect a list of names and pick a winner at random and announce the winner on Friday 9/30. The contest is open between now and Thursday 9/29/11. So join in on the fun! 

(Keep reading after the jump for Part 1 of our two-part Q&A with Robin)!

Q&A with Robin Mather, author of “THE FEAST NEARBY”

(For Part One of this Q&A, go here: https://paulayoo.com/blog/?p=899)

Q: Preserving food can be an overwhelming topic for many people. We’re so used to just throwing leftovers in the fridge and forgetting about them until the food spoils. You froze whole strawberries by the gallon and canned your own tomatoes, corn and green beans. How much money do you estimate you saved by canning your own fruits and vegetables? I was surprised by how simple the process was – it was not as overwhelming as I had imagined. Do you have any advice for people who are interested in preserving their own food? For example, what’s the “easiest” food to start preserving or canning as a baby step into becoming more responsible for canning your own food instead of buying prepackaged foods that have way too many preservatives?

A: Having a pantry full of home-canned fruits and vegetables and a freezer full of food saves me money in the long haul (as opposed to week by week) in a couple of ways. First, it keeps me out of the store — which means I’m not spending money on impulse buys.

Second, it means I spend most of my grocery money in the summer filling the pantry and the freezer, but then when autumn comes, my grocery bills drop to virtually nothing. I can always think of something to eat from what I have on hand.

If you’re just starting out in canning, look for things you can preserve by the hot water bath method. You can do jams and preserves this way (although how many jars do we all eat of preserves every year?). Tomatoes can certainly be done this way as well. Some salsas can be preserved by this method. You don’t need a lot of expensive equipment for hot water bath canning, but don’t even think about reusing commercial glass jars from pickles and mayonnaise and the like. They aren’t designed for it, and are likely to break in the canner — a total waste of your time and effort, not to mention the food.

Canning is seeing a renaissance these days, and there are lots of good books and web sites devoted to it. Beside my own book, I certainly recommend The Ball Blue Book of Canning and Preserving Recipes and www.canningacrossamerica.com.

Q: Healthwise, you said you lost about 30 pounds. What other health benefits did you notice/feel from disciplining yourself to eat locally for $40 a week?

A: My doctor told me that my cholesterol dropped enough to end the medicine she had prescribed, and my blood pressure dropped in the same way with the same result. My blood sugar readings, previously in the pre-diabetic range, dropped to low normal. Those are the straight-up physical side effects for me.

Less apparent to the eye, perhaps, were that my mood improved dramatically as I grew in confidence in my self-reliance. As I moved from being a complete stranger in a new place to feeling like part of my community of neighbors — the people who grew the food I ate — I also felt myself relaxing and feeling less guarded. Moving closer to the principles that are important to me made me feel happier and stronger, left me feeling much better about myself and the world around me.

I made new friends, tasted new foods and generally wanted to engage more in life — in my life, the only one I’ll have. These are all good things.

Q: Do you think that today’s skyrocketing obesity rates (especially among children) are related at all to people simply buying too many canned/pre-packaged foods instead of educating themselves about local and sustainable foods? Given that my blog is read by many parents and school teachers for my children’s books, what advice can you give to help these parents and teachers educate children on eating better?

A: Childhood obesity is a complex topic, of course. On the whole, I think it’s a combination of bad food and too much of it, mixed with not enough activity. A 12-ounce can of regular pop has 9 teaspoons of sugar in it; how much, then, does one of those monstrous super-sized portions have?

As I say in the book, everything I needed to learn to love cooking, I learned at my mother’s side in the kitchen. She put me to work helping her with kitchen chores when I was still very young; I can remember her standing me on a stool at the sink and tying an apron around my chest so I could peel potatoes for her with a safety peeler when I was probably 5 or 6 years old. I felt so proud to be helping; I can remember that feeling vividly today, nearly a half-century later.

There’s an old family joke about the goofy “cheese pumpkins” I made for Thanksgiving one year at about that age, little balls of shredded cheese pressed into balls, with a clove stuck into each one for a stem. Everyone oohed and aahed over them, and every one was eaten. They were a little grimy and unappetizing, though, because I forgot the “wash-your-hands-first” step!

And no one was more surprised than my mother when she found me eating pumpkin pie for breakfast when I was about 8. Pumpkin pie is my favorite, and I always asked for it instead of birthday cake as a little girl.“I was hungry for it, and I read the instructions on the label of the canned pumpkin, and we had everything, so I made it,” I told her. “You taught me how to make the crust, remember?”

The point here is that the biggest thing you can do for your children’s long-term, life-long health is to get them involved in helping you in the kitchen. Set aside your preconceived notions about what kids will and won’t eat, and put them to work. Don’t expect perfection. Be a kind teacher. Make a fuss and praise their work lavishly. Kids will delight in eating anything that they helped cook, I promise.

Make sure you take them to the market with you, too. But don’t just “drag them along.” Talk to them about why you’re buying what you’re buying, introduce them to the farmers at the market, explain why the family will eat pot roast tonight and barbecued beef sandwiches tomorrow from the leftovers. Ask your kids what they want to eat for dinner, and ask them to help you find a good recipe for it.

Take both your sons and your daughters, although perhaps only one at a time, because both need these basic life skills. Make the trip to the store a reward for good behavior: “Who gets to go to the store with me today?” Encourage their curiosity. I learned the meaning of the word “quiescent” by asking my mom why the Popsicles box said they were “quiescently frozen.”  By the way, her answer was that “quiescent” means “very still,” and said she guessed that meant the Popsicles didn’t move around very much while they were freezing. 🙂

You’ll be teaching them the skills needed to know how to cook. What a wonderful gift that is!

Q: They say eating can be very emotional – we have our comfort foods, we have food that makes us nostalgic for our childhood etc. What emotional journey did you go on when you started your frugal year-long journey of eating locally and surviving on such a small budget? What did you learn about yourself in the process?

A: What a great question! At the very beginning, I was so sad and lonely and heartbroken and afraid … I found myself cooking dishes that were favorites of my mother’s, because, I suppose, I didn’t want to feel so alone. Eating the dishes I remembered from her table reminded me of happier days. My mother and most of the rest of my family are long dead, sadly; but I could resurrect them all by eating dishes that I remembered us eating together.

As time passed, I began to again cook things that had fallen out of my repertoire because my husband didn’t care for them. Realizing that I was no longer required to accommodate his meat-and-potatoes preferences was really delightful for me!

I found that preparing my meals became far more simple, because my basic cooking style is not high-end, and without his preferences, I could be satisfied with just a bowl or two of soup, for example. He had always made it clear that he did not consider soup a meal.

One thing I was surprised to learn about myself was how much I love the fellowship I feel when I eat the street foods and simple dishes that poor people around the world eat. I talk about that in the book, a little, and it was significant, a big change. I’m a Quaker, which you may not know, and one Quaker principle is, “live simply so others may simply live.” By living and eating simply, I leave more food available in the world for people who need it more than I do. I feel good about myself when I do this.

Q: Please tell us about your next book projects!

A: It’s too soon to know if there is interest in a sequel to The Feast Nearby, although I would like to write one. A lot of recipes I wanted to include had to be cut from the manuscript to keep the book affordable, that’s for sure, and I have a bunch of other recipes I’d like to share, too.

Right now, I’m working on a novel about a young woman who’s starting to sell at the farmers market, and the challenges she and her new friends at the market face. It’s set in Detroit and she sells at the amazing Eastern Market, where I lived in the early ‘90s. The novel gives me a chance to talk about the politics of food in a very fresh way — things like whether raw milk should be legal to buy, whether the poor are entitled to food that is “clean and fair,” in Slow Food founder Carlo Petrini’s memorable phrase, and the immense labyrinth of laws that govern our food system. She’s a “guerrilla gardener,” who’s using the backyard of a foreclosed house to grow her crops, for example. When she’s discovered and booted off the property, early in the book, one of her challenges is to find land to grow on.

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Thanks Robin! Stay tuned for a special recipe from ROBIN MATHER, which will be posted next Friday September 23rd. 

Remember – I’m also hosting a month-long book contest too! Please comment in this month’s FOODIE FRIDAY blogs or email me at paula at paulayoo dot com to be part of our book contest giveaway drawing where I will draw a name a random to win a signed copy of Robin’s book, THE FEAST NEARBY. Winner(s) will be announced on Friday Sept. 30th’s blog.

Our Foodie Friday schedule:

Friday 9/23: A special Robin Mather recipe!

Friday 9/30: Contest winner announced for a signed copy of Robin Mather’s book!

Until next week, remember… Happy Writing! WRITE LIKE YOU MEAN IT!