Gulyas leves!

WATCH this interview with a Hungarian cook from Transylvania!

In a very tiny village far away there is a piece of my heart.

The village is in Transylvania,  which is in Romania, but all of the people there are Hungarian, and they are members of our partner church, whom I have visited four times over the past nine years. They are so dear to me that I feel as if they are part of my family. 

(Above you see Rozi, in her summer kitchen, talking about her memories of our visit).

These people have survived Communism, terrible dictatorship and persecution under  Ceaușescu, and persistent poverty and threats to their way of life, their culture, their religion, and their land and even their language. Yet they remain people of gentle, loving spirits, warm and joyful, full of faith and goodwill, and hospitable to every stranger with the phrase Isten Aldjon,  a greeting that means "God Bless You."

This week, I will be thinking of them especially, since I was with them during Easter week and afterwards two years ago, and so I have made two Hungarian soups: the first is Gulyas Leves, a beef and vegetable soup flavored with sweet Hungarian paprika.

The village folks cook everything from scratch (like me), and of course almost everything they include is picked or killed in their own yard. I even watched as the lamb was sacrificed for Easter (which, by the way, is mercifully swift when done properly!). I did buy the beef and the vegetables, but everything was peeled, chopped and simmered for hours.

Hope you will share a bit of village life this week!

PS. In July, my partner Minister, Bela, and a young woman from our village will visit us for three weeks and I hope you will meet them when they do! Isten Aldjon!

 Here I am making the traditional bread for Easter Communion with Rozi (in video) .. it is cooked in a kiln.

 Here with a family for a mid day meal.. the boy gave me the red car for Seth. I love him!

One woman, One dream, One beautiful world..

 We love you, Chez Panisse! get well soon.

 Chez Panisse was the dream of one woman, Alice Waters. She and a few friends started the restaurant in 1971, with one simple idea: to make it like a dinner party for friends, elegant and with attention to detail. 

It grew into this beautiful and famous restaurant in Berkeley, CA, which has been named the Top Restaurant in America, and Alice Waters has become a well-known author and philanthropist, with a foundation that has created school gardens all over the Bay Area.
 

Sadly, much of the gorgeous facade was destroyed by fire on Friday, and even though it will be restored, it is always heartbreaking to see any part of your dream demolished.

 

 Although Alice Waters and Chez Panisse have changed in many ways over 40 years, some things are remarkably consistent: the menu is set; each evening a prix fixe  meal is served, sourced from freshly picked or caught ingredients.

Not only is the food organic and local, it is fair, meaning grown in ways that don't harm the earth, and by people who are treated and paid fairly.

Finally, it is delicious, elegant, and interesting. Pleasure in food is a part of the Chez Panisse vision!

So, love & prayers from the Little Red Hen, just a tiny fledgling cousin who shares many of your values, to you and your fabulous restaurant, Alice!

MARCH~ing on toward a Better World.. one meal at a time

 

Above is one of many images of the "Green Man"... if you go to Europe and look carefully, you can find him everywhere, carved into buildings, and amongst the gargoyles.

 

Our ancestors, those of us with Anglo-european roots, had a real reverence for the earth and what it meant for life.

 

We have lost that, collectively, and if we don't wake up soon, the time of human existence on Planet Earth will actually be finite... That concerns me, especially when God gave us this planet, and gave us brains and the power to make wise decisions. 

 

One of the reasons I have a limited menu in the Cafe is that everything is homemade daily, and I have almost no food waste.

 

I buy locally as much as possible (come on, Farmers' Market.. I can hardly wait!!), buy whole rather than packaged or processed foods (above are the muffins you buy in an earlier stage. NO mixes or boxed products)

 

Any recyclable waste is recycled.

 

My brown trash container is less than 1/3 full every Thursday!

 

That's also because almost every plate I serve comes back clean.

 

 

Don't worry! That's not a menu item! This is how I use the trimmings from veggies: wash them well, then cook them slowly to make a homemade veg stock so my soups without meat are good for vegetarians!!

 

 

That's really what the Little Red Hen Cafe is about: building community, good healthy food, and a vision of a better world. Please pause a moment when you make your take-out and dining decisions and think about the implications of your choices. Yes, you can get a bigger menu, a faster drive thru lunch, and some crunchy fries for $7 (although I noticed my husband's lunch at Hardee's was EIGHT dollars) or you can help work toward this vision with me and others.



WASTE NOT....

I have never liked to waste ANYthing. Food, money, time, or energy. I definitely don't want to waste my life, because I believe life is precious.

So it bothers me when I see how incredibly much waste is still being created by humans, today, even though we KNOW that we simply can not continue to do this to our planet.

Since I have a small cafe, I have become even more interested in sustainability. I actually became an advocate for natural, whole foods, and simple, waste-free meals over thirty years ago, when I attended La Leche League as a young mom. But even earlier than that, my mother raised chickens and sold the eggs, my dad had an enormous vegetable garden in our home state of New Jersey, and we spent our summers at the beach, so I learned that fresh vegetables, freshly caught fish, and farm-raised eggs can not be matched by supermarket produce.

One problem we face as consumers is that when we shop or eat out, we really don't know where things are manufactured, or how they are packaged. We also don't know how the waste is handled.

This NPR program is just a few minutes long ... Click on the link and you can listen or just read it:
Food waste
It describes what happens to restaurant food waste... about a half-pound per meal served. From the horrors of the dumpster filled with rotting food (which could have been donated, composted, or fed to animals), increases in the population of insects and vermin, methane gases, and landfill overflow.. it adds up to one of the biggest environmental problems we have!

There are actually a few restaurants that go to the time and expense of packaging and donating the untouched food to food pantries. Olive Garden and Red Lobster are two that were mentioned.

Because the Little Red Hen Cafe is small, it's much easier for me to stick to my values. If I keep my menu small, serve fresh, local foods that don't come with excess packaging, compost scraps and recycle everything I can, I have only a few small bags of trash in my dumpster per week (also, there is almost never anything left on my customers' plates, which makes me very happy!)

I hope that as the operation expands, I can continue to stick to the things I believe in. Meanwhile, it's something we can all think about.

What Would Willie Say!?

I just finished reading the memoirs of Wm. C. McChord, the man who built the Little Red Hen Cafe... actually, he had no idea it would ever become a cafe!

He built his law offices there, and shortly afterwards, the home we have made into a B&B and named the "Cinnamon House," 202 Lincoln Park Road. Of course, it will also always be "The McChord Place.'

We received a copy of Mr. McChord's memoirs when we took possession of the house, and I recall being a bit intimidated, since he had been such a prominent citizen of Springfield, a descendant of the founder of both Elizabethtown and Bardstown, and also the man responsible for bringing the railroad line to Springfield.  The photo above shows the L&R train when it was on a turntable in Springfield.

But I should have read the book earlier, because through the stories I got to know the boy Willie. He was born in 1850, and his life spanned slavery, the Civil War, World War I, the arrival of plumbing and electricity (our house was the first in Springfield to be constructed with these) and the automobile and telephone.

He didn't build the house downtown until 1902, when his 3 sons and one daughter (another son died at age 13 months) were grown. Even so, the boys never married and the youngest lived in the house and practiced law in the offices that are now the "Hen," staying on until he died at age 93! The house has only been owned by three families prior to ours. Upstairs is a big open room that was built as a ballroom.

This is one of Mr. McChord's sons, the one that went to VMI and was named after his father. I am going to imagine that Willie looked like this when he was young. He was a bit of a rapscallion! He never paid any attention in school, and had to drop out when he was 14 and his parents lost everything during the Civil War. He only became a lawyer by sheer gumption and perseverance. I'll share some more of Willie's stories as I go along, but right now, I am just having fun imagining him and how he might react to what's become of his town house and law offices. He had a good sense of fun and humor, so I think he'd enjoy it.

The Cinnamon House will be open this Saturday as part of a Christmas Tour sponsored by the Historical Society. Hours are 1-5 and there are several locations on the tour... there is a suggested donation of $10.

FUNKY Chicken

This is the time of year when many of us get funky.

Call it the doldrums, winter blahs, or just plain old seasonal affective disorder, it hits when the days grow short and the skies darken, and sometimes sticks around until Spring.

For me, mild to moderate depression in its many forms has been a curse throughout life; even though I am an optimistic person who loves life and tends to think positive, those things don't matter when my bio-chemistry decides to go awry. Things look bleak and days can be very challenging.

I've learned a lot over the years about depression. It can affect anyone, even upbeat, happy people, people who have a lot of faith, people who have friends, rich people, successful people! Like addiction or asthma or diabetes, it's an illness that is largely beyond our control.

That said, there are many things those of who have either depression or mood swings can do make life easier and less unpredictable. Whether you use medication is a personal choice, but it is always helpful to eat a balanced diet of foods in as close to their natural state as possible.

It also helps to keep life simple and wholesome, honest and real. That's why I started the Little Red Hen Cafe, and those are some of the values that are behind it! Hey, you can walk over to the cafe and get that exercise in, too!

Meanwhile, if you are doing the Funky Chicken this winter... you aren't alone!

SUGAR! and other scary things

 Thank heavens that is over! Actually, Seth had a wonderful Halloween in Springfield, and so did we!

That's not our pile of candy.. just an image I found online! But, we are lucky. Our adoptive son Seth doesn't ask for candy, and, although he will consume sugar when it's given to him, we've found that since we don't keep it around and don't serve it (no soft drinks, no sugary desserts, no candy) he doesn't even think about it. He has got to be the only kid whose parents have a cafe with a freezer full of ice cream who doesn't even seem interested! His pile of Halloween candy has already "disappeared" and he won't miss it!

But he does NOT like vegetables, and that's something we have to work on, since we have recently confirmed that he has Autism. We need to learn a lot more about the link between foods and behaviors. He only likes certain foods, and some of them come packaged and refined. We made a huge breakthrough when he progressed from chicken nuggets to liking simple chicken breasts, or tenders, which we could then buy locally, or saute, or grill. YAY! He still loves hot dogs, mac & cheese, and Campbell's noodle soup.

Kids, especially those with challenges, may not have the discernment to choose wisely all of the time, but adults do.

Every time we shop, make a choice to dine out, or sit down to a meal, we are contributing to the health of our bodies, our families, our communities, and even our planet.

It adds up.

That's what the Little Red Hen Cafe is all about. Making an effort to use less packaged, refined, foods, with as few artificial ingredients as possible, and as many locally sourced products as possible. Supporting local economy and keeping out harmful pesticides, chemicals, additives, and substances that can harm our health and the health of our community. Educating ourselves and each other. It's the only place I know of where you can ask exactly what is in everything you order and get the answer! If these things matter to you, and if you've read this far, they probably do, it's your kind of place, and I ask you to help spread the word so it can be viable here in our community! Thanks.