An Introduction

Hello to any readers. We (Wyatt and Sarah) are a husband and a wife and a little baby daughter who are constantly working out the best way to feed ourselves body and soul. Three things influence the way we make choices about food, presented here in order of least to greatest importance to us ideologically and, unfortunately, greatest to least "on the ground" influence:

1. We're poor. Well O.K., not "poor" poor, but we certainly don't have much if any extra money to throw around, however central food is to our budget.
2. We're becoming "real food"-ies. We prefer to buy things like raw milk, eggs and meat from pastured chickens, grass-fed and pastured beef, organic locavore produce, etc.–when we can afford them.
3. We're Eastern Orthodox Christians. The short version: the Orthodox liturgical year involves a lot of fasting of various degrees. By "a lot," I mean about one third of the year. I also mean pretty much every Wednesday and Friday. In its strictest (and most idealized) forms, a fast means no meat, no milk, no cheese, no eggs, no wine (i.e. alcohol in general), and no olive oil (perhaps oil in general, but that depends on who you ask).

So not having money is a rock-and-a-hard-place sort of limit on the other two, while Orthodox praxis is the highest guiding principle. The food gets stuck in between.

As might already be clear, these three things co-exist amidst a lot of tensions. Real food is important but expensive, and we don't have that much money. Fasting is an important ascetic practice of the Church that goes back to the idea of feeding the soul (more on that later, I promise), so during a fast, margarine might take the place of butter. But from the perspective of real foods, margarine is verbot, and rightly so. Our time and energy and money are important, so it doesn't make sense to pour a disproportionate amount of our time/energy/money into worrying and fussing about eating the "best" real food at the cost of developing our family's spiritual life.

Like it says above, this blog is about the way we make choices, what choices we make, and maybe a glimpse of why we make them. We won't always be "on point," as it were, constantly philosophizing about the conundrums we face. Half the time we'll probably post recipes. We also hope to rope in a few other contributors to this blog who find themselves in a similar situation. In any case, welcome, and thanks for reading. Please see our About page for more information (to be added).