On Radical Beginnings

Some baby steps into the radical lifestyle.

As much as I’d like to think that all my readers are going to go all-in on the “radical eating” lifestyle, I do realize that that’s not the case. Like the dog trainer whose name I can’t remember, I exaggerate dictating how you should eat in the hopes that a few of you adopt at least a fraction of what I’m preaching¹. I think the world would be a better place if everyone got just a little bit closer to their food, thought for a few more minutes about how it got to their plate.

That being said, I understand that this philosophy can sometimes feel like getting whacked over the head with a sledgehammer. Maybe a lighter touch would suffice, maybe some more practical suggestions might be the nudge one or two of you need in order to get a little more radical. You don’t need to spend 10,000 hours working on your archery draw and release to add some wild food to your diet; you don’t need to build, fill, plant, and harvest all your vegetables from a half dozen raised beds; you don’t need to raise your own livestock, slaughter it, process it, live only off the fat of your own land. You can, if you want to dip your toes in, accomplish much of the same connection in an easier, more accessible way.

You can get radical with baby steps.

With that in mind, as we head into Christmas weekend, here are some actionable things you can do to get a little bit more intimate with what you put into your body, things you can do to have some skin in the game on how you eat. You might even find you take the whole process of cooking and eating a little more seriously when you start some of these, realizing the true value of good food.

Or, you might, as Kiddo and the Warthog do now, just scarf it down — sometimes — and say, “mmm, that’s yummy!²”

Whatever works, works. Just do it.

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Let’s start with meat. I think the most accessible way to get super high quality meat, outside of hunting it or raising it yourself, meat that you can really know how the animal lived, is to buy it from someone you know. Here’s a great website you can use to find a rancher or farmer near you, and get to know them. (Maybe it’s your neighbor!) Outside of that, I’ll say until time immemorial that North Bridger Bison is as real as you can get³. Grab a quarter bison — use it as an excuse to get a chest freezer — and have enough meat for a few months. Once you taste the difference, it will be hard to go back to conventional beef⁴.

If meat is not your forte, you can grow vegetables. And, you don’t need to install huge raised beds, or even have a backyard. Start small with a small kitchen herb box. You can get this self-watering planter set on Amazon, purchase potted basil, oregano, thyme, and many other “basic” herbs at a lot of grocery stores — or any garden stores during the spring — and place them on a window sill with little additional thought. Then, when you’re cooking, if you need thyme, or oregano, or basil, or rosemary — your herbs, your fresh herbs, are just a snip away.

(If you have a little more space, you can do the same in a larger planter outside with tomatoes and peppers — two fairly easy plants to grow in pots, which require water, soil, and not much else.)

Some more baby steps. See if you have a friend who bakes their own bread. See if you can try some. Maybe ask them to show you how they do it⁵. Buy a whole chicken instead of individual cuts. Break it down⁶. Appreciate how many chickens go into that three pound value pack of chicken thighs you would have otherwise purchased, how many chickens you devoured at 10-cent wing night in college. See and feel the literal connections in what you are eating⁷.

Try to visit a farm during the planting season. Volunteer to help plant seeds or weed the beds or string trellises. Join their CSA. See the amount of effort it takes to produce a head of lettuce, an ear of corn. It will make you think twice about tossing that bag of wilting greens you have in the crisper drawer.

Spinach grows in the ground, not on trees⁸.

Shop less at grocery stores. Look for farmer’s markets⁹, for farm stands, your neighbors who have an abundance of squash and zucchini every summer. Stop when you see “FRESH EGGS 4 SALE” signs and grab a dozen¹⁰. Develop a relationship with those folks — get “an egg guy.” See if you can find a farm that delivers milk to your door¹¹. It’s endearing to have a milkman¹². Go into your local butcher shop and talk to the guys and girls behind the counter. Ask what’s fresh, what just came in.

Do the same at a fish market¹³.

It takes a little more time to shop this way, yes. But pick one thing that excites you. Maybe it’s the meat, maybe it’s the vegetables, the eggs, the dairy. Start there. Do 90% of your shopping at the grocery store¹⁴, but get your fish from the fishmonger who sets up shop on Thursdays. It might necessitate another trip, it might make setting a meal plan a little harder — but you’ll be rewarded with fresher food, better food, more rewarding food.

Shopping will stop being mindless. Shopping should never be mindless.

Eating should never be mindless.

You simply deserve better.

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There we go, folks — radical baby steps you can start taking now. If you’re the kind of person who likes to make New Year’s resolutions, I’d encourage you to make one of yours to eat more radically. If you’re not, you can still make an effort to do so anyway.

With that, I’ll leave you to your Yuletide joy. We’re hosting on the CWD Ranch — we’ve got presents to yet to wrap, stockings yet to stuff, prime ribs yet to roast¹⁵. I hope that you, too, can celebrate in whatever way is appropriate, with those you love. We’re nearing the end of the year — look back, reflect, but don’t linger.

We’ll be back here next week with one more dispatch in 2023 — probably with oysters in it — and then we’re on to January.

1. Shout out to Cousin Stretch, who at a Halloween party this fall told me her aspirations to break her streak of vegetarianism with an elk she harvests and packs out herself. As I said then, just let me know if you need me to tag along for moral support!

2. Speaking of Kiddo and the Warthog, here’s a secret bonus recipe for those of you who read the footnotes. I’ve written before about my meatball recipe. I’ve also written about how Kiddo hates commingling of ingredients in her meals. Since my meatball recipe usually has visible onion chunks in the meat, I’ll typically make some “naked” ones for her and the Warthog. The process is beyond simple, and honestly, probably taste just about as good.

Pre-heat your oven to 350(F). In a bowl, combine about a pound of ground meat — beef, bison, lamb, venison, pork, or a mix thereof — salt, pepper, and an egg yolk. Mix lightly with your hands, then shape into 6 or so loose meatballs. Get a cast iron pan ripping hot with olive oil or butter, and fry the meatballs for a few minutes on one side until well-browned. Flip the meatballs, then remove the pan into the oven and cook for 8-10 minutes until the meatballs are cooked through.

3. Or, if that’s too much of a commitment, try the Wild Harvest Box from Windward-Westward, which is both more bite-sized and offers more variety than just 75 pounds of bison.

4. Which is still, believe it or not, still amazingly healthy for you and especially growing kids. The environmental impacts, however, are not sustainable in the long run — which is why I’m all in on regenerative livestock practices like those practiced by Matt and his ranch.

5. It doesn’t even need to be sourdough!

6.

Wil Reidie

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The Recovering Line Cook

has a tremendous video on how to do this with a turkey, just as applicable for a chicken.

7. Maybe see if you can find class to do the same on a larger animal. The hog butchery class I took earlier this year was eye opening.

8. And someone has to put it there, plant it there, tend it there, harvest it there!

9. Be aware, though, not every farmer’s market vendor is growing their own wares. Some are less scrupulous, buy vegetables in bulk and slap a fancy farm logo on their table. That’s why it’s so important to talk to the people at the markets — ask them what they grew, where their farm is located, what they’re excited about eating themselves. It will lead you, even if everything is copacetic, to make better purchases.

10. It’s worth keeping a couple $5 bills in your glove box for this very reason.

11. If you’re in the Boston area, Crescent Ridge is a great option.

12. Though Kiddo does believe that anything in our house that has gone missing has been “taken by the milkman.”

13. If you don’t have a fish market, we’ve really enjoyed the flash-frozen Alaskan salmon we’ve gotten directly from fisherman. Our latest purchase, from this year’s catch, was from Yakobi Fisheries.

14. Yes, Nana, you can even keep shopping at Wal-Mart.

15. I accidentally got an enormous one from Pursuit Farms again this year, which I am both excited and nervous to cook.