Frosty Paws

So, here I am, sitting in the room we call "the office" since it is where our desks, file cabinets, supplies, computer/printer and so forth are located, trying to keep the circulation going in my fingers by typing.  The circulation is imperiled by the fact that when I woke up this morning I discovered that the furnace was not working.  At all. We don't keep heat on at night, as we sleep in flannel, down, quilts, and cats, and rarely need any extra heat. But as soon as I get up into the icy winter house, I turn the heat on.  Our highest setting at any time of day is 69, once in a great while 70.  This morning when I turned the thermostat up to 68, nothing happened.  And it still isn't happening.  It's 33 degrees outside, and it sure feels a lot like that in here, despite the space heaters I have going in this room and the kitchen.  I've closed these two rooms off to the rest of the house, and from time to time I go turn on the oven for an extra little blast of warmth.  We called the company that services our heater and swamp cooler as soon as we could, and supposedly at some yet-undisclosed time today a technician will show up to see what's going on and presumably fix it.  This happened several weeks ago, on one of the only cold days in November, and THAT technician seemed quite vague and unsure of his fix. It's a quite new furnace, and this is a mystifying problem.  I don't want to build a fire in the fireplace, as I keep imagining that the fix-it guy will come and I'll be released from my waiting - I have a lot I need to do do in the world outside this house, and don't want to leave a fire burning while I go to La Montanita for food resupply.

I'm always amazed when anything of this nature happens:  malfunction of necessary systems, power outages, big roof leaks, and so forth - to see how dependent we really are on these systems. We have all come to take heat/light/water on command as a given, as well as all that comes to us piggybacking on those utilities. We take having what we want where we want it when we want it as the Natural Order of the Universe, and when that order of the universe is interrupted, we freak.

I think of my friend Kathy, working with Innovative Communities.orgFoundation in Guatemalan villages, where there are no systems to malfunction, where poverty and natural catastrophe are the governing orders.  Kathy and the people she works with are replacing traditional unvented open hearths with safe, fuel-efficient  stoves, installing water filters for families at risk from water-bourne illness, providing school supplies and library books for children. I knew Kathy when we were both privileged young women studying abroad in France, and we have remained long-distance friends ever since. The work she is doing is amazing and the people she works with are the ones who should inherit the earth when all our power systems finally wink out completely as our way of life collapses.   As I do believe it will, perhaps even within my lifetime. I should be learning to live much more sustainably, to depend far less on these external-to-me systems. So, I put on more layers, I eat two zucchini-mushroom tamales,( warmed in the microwave, because not all of my systems have yet collapsed), let the fix-it guy in, he finds it to be a bad pressure switch, and now he's gone to pick up a new one.  A good one, I hope. And then I read that in England, where they are having a terrible run of freezing weather: "Thousands of homes could run out of heating oil over Christmas and rationing will be introduced if the freezing weather continues, the Government has warned." None of us are ready for what is eventually coming down the pike.

If you'd like to know more about ICO's work in Guatemala, there is a blog, with wonderful photos and day-to-day stories of what is happening.  It will take you right there.

Edible Institute 2010

I am so excited right now, it's hard to type. Do you live in one of the cities or areas covered in an Edible Communities magazine? These are all across the country, even a couple in Canada, and my closest is very close: Edible Santa Fe. I have been an aficcionada of this publication since I picked up my first issue, soon after we moved to New Mexico. I read every every word of every issue, then lovingly tuck them into a pile on top of the kitchen bookcase where my cookbooks are kept. The stated purpose of the publishers is this:

EDIBLE COMMUNITIES, INC. is a publishing and information services company that creates editorially rich, community-based, local-foods publications in distinct culinary regions throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe. Through our publications, supporting websites, and events, we connect consumers with family farmers, growers, chefs, and food artisans of all kinds. We believe that every person has the right to affordable, fresh, healthful food on a daily basis and that knowing where our food comes from is a powerful thing. We are a for-profit, member-driven corporation - individuals who own our publications are local-foods advocates and residents of the communities they publish in - a business model that not only supports our values, but also preserves the integrity of our member publications and the communities we serve.

and they live up to every glowing word of that mission statement. It was in the pages of Edible Sta Fe that I first discovered Deborah Madison, who has fast become my favorite food and cookbook writer, and every issue brings information about a local farmer or food/wine producer whom I am delighted to meet and add to my growing store of local resources. So, yesterday while browsing the website, I came upon the announcement that later this month the first Edible Communities Institute will be held - be still my heart - right here in New Mexico. In Santa Fe, to be exact. At The Bishop's Lodge Ranch Resort Hotel & Spa, to be even more exact. If you follow the link do be sure to read the history of this place. If you are a Willa Cather fan you will already know some of it (A Death Comes for the Archbishop reader particularly.) This event is billed as: "a gathering of influential writers, thinkers and eaters celebrating sustainable ideas." And here is the announcement and agenda for the Institute, featuring an amazing roster of speakers and panelists, who will be discussing the issues that are currently closest to my heart, mind, and stomach: why sustainability matters, the importance of local and organic foods, the pushback of industrial agriculture, labor and human rights issues in the sustainable agriculture movement, and not the least of these, a panel on The Southwest Foodshed, Sustaining the Agricultural and Culinary Heritage of the Southwest, with Deborah Madison as one of the panelists.

I have to go now, make my online purchase of a ticket to this event, plan how I will explain the fifty buck extravagance to my partner, when we are sworn to a winter of belt-tightening. Don't worry, I'll think of something. Just getting a chance to go into the Bishop's Lodge is worth it to me. Then you throw in Tom Phillpott, Deborah Madison, Lisa Hamilton, and Fred Kirschenmann - how can I not go?