Mary Collette

For our healthy meal making classes, we always bring “clean” meat (i.e., free of antibiotics and growth hormones, humanely processed and often locally grown and processed, grass-fed and/or organic, free-range, etc.)  Participants love how it tastes and wonder where it can be bought. Of course this line of inquiry runs us smack dab into the … Read more

Moving the Conversation Past the Dead End Sign It’s a mantra, said almost automatically any more:  “I can’t afford healthy food.  It’s too expensive.” Like Time, Affordability is a dead-ender.  In other words, once raised, it effectively dead ends a conversation about healthy eating.  If we don’t have time or can’t afford good food, then … Read more

There’s a part of Colorado you probably don’t know about.  Mostly, we Coloradans live in a narrow band of settlement, strung out along the foothills that run north and south.  From there, Colorado stretches to the west, into the spectacular peaks, canyons, mesas and forests that make Colorado a natural playground. But there’s a part … Read more

I remember reading about it years ago, in Eat Here, Reclaiming Homegrown Pleasures in a Global Supermarket.  Among hundreds of interesting insights into our food system, Brian Halweil revealed this tidbit:  Britain’s National Collection features of 2000 varieties of apples!  What’s more, spread among this diversity is an almost continuous harvest, with some varieties ripening … Read more

I once had a job opening envelopes.  All day long.  I quit after four days.  It was either that or take up a drug habit to survive the mindlessness. I thought about that experience today, as I was sautéing plums to freeze for winter.  I did this last year and the plums were divine.  But … Read more

It was a mad day.  Although a balmy 80 degrees by 10 in the morning, nightfall was predicted to bring a hard frost, i.e., the kind that extinguishes plants on contact, especially the more tender summer crop plants.  So I headed out early to bring in the last of the tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant, basil and … Read more

It’s not surprising that we think of vegetables as inanimate objects.  After all, we generally buy them in gigantic stores where, displayed in the next aisle over, might be anything from beauty products, pharmaceuticals and miscellaneous hardware items to winter gloves, engine oil and even laundry baskets. While it’s not hard to see a distinction … Read more

How many times in a day do we touch something that’s alive?  I can think of plenty of non-alive things we come in contact with:  the steering wheel of a car, packaging for a breakfast bar, computer keyboard, coffee machine, coffee cup, gym equipment, machine-made microwaveable lunch, elevator buttons, chairs, clothing, silverware, plates, portable electronic … Read more

Parsley.  It’s all over my garden. That’s because parsley is one of those re-seeders. Plant it once and thereafter, wherever there’s the smallest patch of unoccupied soil, parsley will take up residence. Could be an example of abundance.  But it could equally be viewed as a weed problem. There’s only so much parsley a person … Read more

Yesterday’s post talked about extravagance–something we get to indulge in because autumn is such a generous season. There’s a flip side, however:  Autumn isn’t bountiful with everything, only produce that ripens at this time of year.  While the collection of autumn-ripening produce is definitely the biggest, it doesn’t include things like asparagus, queen of spring, … Read more