Co-opin’

For the past few years I’ve been feeling like I need to join a food co-op again (I was part of a home based one 14 years ago then part of a store front one in the mountains for many years and again when another store front one opened in my current town but closed down). I did find a co-op group last summer that was located about 20 min away from where I live. It was what I was looking for but it didn’t work out for us for different reasons. I was left with the fact that I would have to take on this job myself and start something here in my town. I was given the different distributors’ info and set up accounts with them right away. I already had a group of interested friends wanting to do this and since I was doing all the coordinating work for it, I chose to keep it small and manageable for me to deal with – we have 11 families in our group and have had others ask to join in but have turned them down until we think we need to grow. We’ve been ordering about 2x/month. The produce selection changes with the seasons so it’s been fun for us to see what’s on the list each week.

I like the distributor we are with who provides the fresh fruit and veggies. They also carry all of Organic Valley’s dairy and eggs, too as well as locally made gmo-free tofu and locally made organic tortillas. For me, a co-op (or buyer’s club) is better than being part of a CSA (which I was part of for a couple years) because I can pick and choose which veggies and fruit I want and if it’s a price I want to pay. Since it’s a group buying these items, we all split the large cases they come in and get just how much we want for amazing prices. And the quality has been excellent for mostly everything. It’s a win-win for me personally since I really look to always save money especially in an unstable economy and still get to have the best quality food for my family that’s mostly local, wholesale and organic.

There is another distributor located near our produce distributor that carries all the bulk organic dry goods such as: nuts, dried fruits, grains, flours, legumes, etc. If we don’t have enough items to meet their minimum order, we can pay a markup on the price of our dry goods items to the produce distributor and they will go and get it for us and deliver it with our produce order. It really has been great having this option for all of us! Last summer I replenished my dry goods depleted stock here at home and split a variety of grains, beans, flours and nuts and we have been eating from our stores all year making fun and delicious ethnic food and other recipes – even homemade pizza night! Since I eat all vegan (and about half raw) and my husband eats an omnivore diet, we agreed to make vegan family dinners from all this bulk and preserved food we invested in and we’ve been really enjoying the variety of recipes we’ve tried out. The fresh produce we get 2x/month is a really nice addition, too.

Since we live in CO, in winter there isn’t that much growing here on a large scale besides potatoes and indoor herbs, sprouts & mushrooms so more items are brought in from organic farms in CA and other states like TX or even Mexico that we will buy (like citrus, greens & now artichokes!) but during the warmer growing season, our distributor really tries to work with as many CO based organic farmers as possible – several are even from the town I live in which makes me happy to support those farms as well as other organic farms from the surrounding 100 miles of our town. And CO is known for its amazing western slope fruits like peaches, nectarines and cherries and they distribute these as well!

Even though there are 2 large farmer’s markets near me, the exact same produce from some of the same farms are carried through our distributor at much better pricing for us. We only have to meet this company’s minimum order of $200 and they deliver the order to my home for free (where a few of us divide it up for the group) since we are on their delivery route for stores. Since everything through the distributor is sold by the large case or pound sacks (50#), we are actually buying bigger volume from the farmers than if we just bought a pound or two at the farmer’s market or if I had a CSA share. I still like to support other farms and enjoy the farmer’s market atmosphere so we go to the really big market on Wednesday nights in summer and buy assorted items from the booths for a picnic dinner and watch live, outdoor music performed nearby.

We are also growing a much larger garden this season, too. I’ve been trying to figure out how much I might want to purchase outside of the bulk buying of certain fruits and veggies for preserving for winter. We increased the amount we preserved last summer (by canning, drying, freezing & lactofermenting) and have been really good about using our frozen veggies, canned sauce, salsa and pickles and other lactofermented foods like sauerkraut. Even the dried produce and herbs are being used up well. The seasonal food cycle really makes such logical sense to me to live like this and eat really high quality food all year. You can totally taste the difference – even my frozen veggies still have such good flavor and crispness when we cook with them. The frozen fruits (mostly used in smoothies) have been delicious, too.

Don’t believe that eating organic food has to be more expensive – for us, it’s cheaper than buying conventional produce & dry goods at the supermarket. We are also supporting organic farmers from our state as well as a few other locations by buying large quantities from them. Our distributor even gives back to the farmers they work with through their annual profit share program. The more we buy from the distributor, the more the farmer’s make.

And what about me and all my hard work in coordinating all of this? In lieu of payment for me I’ve asked that the co-op members chip in and buy an extra case of fruit each time we order to donate to the food bank in our town. It’s our way of giving back to those less fortunate and who pretty much rarely if ever get to eat fresh fruit or veggies. I am very lucky I don’t have to worry about that so I wanted to donate my “fee” and give fresh, organic food to those who desperately need it.

Birthday Extravaganza Week

I know I’ve been a bad blogger and haven’t posted in a few weeks. There has been so much going on: I’ve been trying to learn some new technology, learning to use Twitter, as well as working on my website redesign and planning my son’s 5th birthday extravaganza with his buddy! That’s right, it was a joint birthday party for 2 little 5 year old boys.

His birthday was last week, Fat Tuesday, actually. He was born on Fat Tuesday, too. The kid likes to party!

Since his actual birthday was a weekday, the party was this past Sunday. He doesn’t go to preschool on Tuesdays so I had to plan a day of fun for him since he has no family here to make a big deal over him. It’s all up to us to do it. My husband took a half day at work so we drove down to his new office and picked him up, went to a nearby fun playground with really big slides (his favorite) and had a picnic. Did I mention it was almost 70 degrees out and sunny that day? Amazing. We played hard there for a couple of hours then went to a nearby (cheap!) movie theater that was showing 2 different animated kid’s movies and he picked the movie, The Tale of Despereaux. He LOVED it! It was a very cute movie. He ate a giant bag of popcorn mostly by himself, too.

After that, we drove into Denver to a restaurant, Casa Bonita, that is so kitschy it belongs in Vegas! South Park TV show actually did a whole very funny episode about it, too. That is the only thing I can think of when I think about this restaurant. I’ve lived in CO for almost 15 years now and have never been there and after reading about my friend Heather’s experience there recently with her kids, I knew my son Leif would love it and I was right! The food is pretty lame Mexican food (according to my husband) but we had a great time there. There is a wandering mariachi band that plays and sings while you eat and you can get free sopapillas throughout your meal. I was able to “veganize” a taco salad so my dinner wasn’t too bad!

They actually have a little show they put on approximately every 15 minutes on this tiny stage area that is right in the middle of the dining area and there is a 30 foot drop down into a pool of water. There is a waterfall and fake palm trees, too. Leif was mesmerized by the little skits and then the guy diving 30 feet off the platform into the water – he thought it was the coolest thing!

The place is enormous, rooms and hallways leading to all sorts of areas including 2 arcades (with ski ball no less – my favorite – but it’s called “ice ball” here), tons of both new and very old school video games – even Pac Man! – a mini arcade area with rides for little kids, a place to redeem the coupons you win at the arcade for little toys, a treasure chest room, vendors selling different trinkets, etc. It really was so fun!

He then had his birthday party at preschool on Friday and it’s a Waldorf school so it’s a special type of ceremony for the child. The teacher crochets a crown for him and he wears a birthday cape and holds a star wand and she reads a special birthday story and lights candles for how old he is. Each parent/teacher/child at the ceremony says birthday wishes/blessings for him as the teacher ties “wish knots” in play silks for each wish spoken and the silks surround his handmade doll she made for him. He takes the basket and unties all the silks and finds his present at the end. It’s very sweet and loving. We will miss this!

Last Sunday was the big extravaganza birthday party at a local gymnastics place that we shared with his buddy, Jackson who goes to preschool with him and lives down the street from us. His 5th birthday was yesterday.  We carpool to school with him, too and they both have been talking about their party for a few weeks now – it’s very cute listening to them.

We did a flying theme (airplanes, helicopters, etc) and the party was at a local gymnastics place that Leif loves going to. We tried to “green up” the party a little by buying a zero waste event kit from our county recycling office. All the plates, utensils, napkins, cups are compostable (made from corn) and go into a huge BioBag trash bag that we return to the recycling dept. for them to compost. All the food was vegan, too. Even the cupcakes, frosting and whipped cream – it was soy whip.

They both had lots of fun as did their friends and when we went home, his buddy Ava came over to play with both Leif and Jackson at the playground and the 3 of them just had a great time! We made some homemade pizzas (3 different cheeses – cow, goat and vegan cheeze) for dinner and Leif and Ava played with all his new presents only stopping to eat pizza and birthday cupcakes. My son was a very happy birthday boy!

He did get a new scooter (that he’s been asking for everyday!) for his birthday which he was so excited for but he now realizes he can go farther and faster on his bike – scooters are much more work! He still loves it and even let Ava try it out at the playground. Jackson got a new scooter, too. This should be fun watching them scootering around together soon!

Little boys are just the cutest, sweetest things! I love my little birthday boy so much!!!!