I am just waiting for this evenings meal to finish cooking, Andrea has just come home from a long days slog in the shop and I am conflicted with divided loyalties. In making dinner I have taken advantage of our scope as much as I can and made a vegetable stock using local organic produce. I must admit that I haven't made stock much in the past and I am really looking forward to tasting what a difference it makes to the meal. The dish itself is Spiced Ristotto with Vegetables, and is cooked using the aforementioned stock, which is added to parsnip (chopped into matchsticks), sprouts (halved or quartered), carrots (chopped), leek (sliced with as much of the head full of goodness as possible) and onion once they have been fried in brazil nut oil (and some oil from the top of the peanut butter, as I am running low). I have then added a few bay leaves from the garden, then brown Fairtrade basmati rice, but with some white to puff it up a bit (the brown doesn't swell much... I want it's goodness but this IS a risotto). Whilst cooking the Fairtrade spices are added, 6 crushed cloves, a teaspoon of cinammon and some Wayfairer mild curry powder, so that I can get access to cumin. Oh, and tons of black pepper.
-------------------
Now eaten, the dinner was good, if slightly undercooked in the rice department, although with this kind of risotto using normal brown rice, the idea is that it should have a nuttier taste with more of a bite. But then whilst eating it Andrea told me that you can die from rice that hasn't been cooked properly. (I am happy to report that it is now morning and we are still alive). The flavour was fantastic, which must be largely due to the homemade fresh stock as well as the surprisingly good balance of Fairtrade spices. This is a mix that I would normally use anyway, except that I had to use the curry powder mix instead of straight cumin, and I didn't have a Fairtrade cardommon (although I have just looked and this is in the mild curry powder mix as well!!!).

Anyway, the reason for the subject title? Well the fairtrade aspect is obviously at the forefront during this fortnight, but due to the fact that we have allowed local organic veg as the only exception to the diet, I am led to lament the joys of locally grown seasonal food. It truly is fantastic and a joy to work with. What is available in season really does dictate what you can eat, which breeds creativity. For the past couple of meals I have used the local produce as the predominant element, rather than in the first couple of days the Fairtrade products led. Fruit is only ever going to have a certain place in a savoury meal, and although I used Fairtrade avocado in tonights meal (served cold on the side of the risotto - it worked great!), most of the Fairtrade fresh produce available at the moment is fruit (considering Avocado is a fruit, make this ALL).

Local produce is another main manifesto of the shop (and something that we want to expand greatly, if there is - or can be - more local producers), and the divided loyalty is that tonight I am feeling the love of local.
---------------------
If anyone wants to know how I made the stock...

2 chopped onions
2 chopped leeks (with as much of the head as possible)
6-7 carrots (bearing in mind that what is left at the moment are rather small) peeled and sliced
4-5 good leaves of cabbage (outer ones if possible)
Fry first in some brazil nut oil  (one recipe I was half using caramalised the onions, leeks and carrots first - I didn't), then add tons of water (more than you will need of eventual stock as some will boil off), half a teaspoon of black peppercorns and 2-3 bay leaves (if you are lucky enough to have some growing fresh in the garden, then this is even better). Boil thoroughly for at least half an hour. I'm sure it's better if you leave it for longer, but I wanted to eat. Strain out all of the juice into a bowl and discard the then vegetable pulp. Eh-voila!
--------------------
For pudding Andrea kindly cut up a pineapple, which was absolutely delicious. A fruit to revere, and what more embelishment can a pudding really need? There is a purity and luxury in an exotic fruit and it is to be savoured.

I must confess that today I got home tired and after doing the washing up did not have any energy to create a new fairtrade concoction. Luckily we had plenty of the vegetable and quinoa stew left over from yesterday, which was fantastic reheated with a little extra water (to bring it back to life) in the microwave. Then much West Wing watching ensued (the ongoing dream of a responsible democratic leadership in the US) in flaking position.

We were delighted to see coverage of the Fairtrade Challenge yesterday in the LB News article, one thing that we should make clear that Greenways is NOT a health food shop. This function is perfectly well covered by Nature's Harvest. Greenways is a green general store that stocks every kind of organic, fairtrade, eco-friendly or local products that you could think (and if we don't have it, recommend it!). I would be very concerned that as a result of this article people visit the shop wanting us to fulfill their heealth food needs, which we do not necessarily cover or have any training or knowledge of. We refer people to Nature's Harvest all of the time with these enquiries, but it is a shame if people then do not look at what we actually do.

Also, the article stresses repeatedly the term "limit" and "limiting" in reference to the Fairtrade challenge and the foods that can be consumed instead of highlighting the real breadth of foods that are available, which is a real shame.



Just enjoying my morning muesli... hmmmmmm! Absent-mindedly added milk to my earl grey, so I had to make it again. It takes a while for the brain to wake up.

Schrecklich. Wrote a big blog and then the magic of myspace crashed and lost it. Joy. So here again....

For breakfast I turned to the trusty Alara Muesli with added brazil nuts, dates and chopped up dried mango served with rice milk and accompanied by earl grey tea. All Fairtrade.

Lunch was the leftover Quinoa dish from last night, just as good cold.

Dinner was not so successful, although Andrea and our guest Sarah (who volunteers at the shop) were very kind and ate most of it. I had tried a similar dish last week as a trial, and have somehow manage to make it worse in the interim. It consisted of... stir fry onions, parsnips (chopped into matchsticks) and sprouts (sliced), add some cabbage once softening along with some cashew nuts. Add spices (ginger, turmeric, small amount of cloves, black pepper) and then towards the end add the juice of a lime and some honey. Served with brown basmati rice it couldn't help but be dry, and to compensate for this as much as I could I used an extra half of a lime, which made it far too sour and tart. The honey used was also not ideal. Instead of a clear runny type (like the Rowse Chilean), the only fairtrade hioney that we had at home was the Equal Exchange Miombo Woodland Honey, which is a thick set one with a very distinctive taste of its own. I struggled to eat all of the dish, which is very unlike me! So changes that I would make if I did a stir fry again... use more normal honey, add water (it seems obvious now - thanks Sarah!) and maybe resort back to the lemons that I used in last weeks dish.

Then we all headed out to the Black Lion pub for the Fairtrade Quiz with Laura (our Saturday girl) and David (a friend of mine who brings the veg every week) making up team Greenways. We were the last ones to arrive (tardy) and the room was fit to bursting so we had to sit in the next room and have the questions relayed.

I am not terribly used to - or in hindsight good at - pub quizzes. This one was aimed at a rather different age group, so our young team struggled, although some sterling answers were conjured by each member of the team, notably Sarah, whose instinctive answers we sometimes overalled to our detriment! We didn't lose the quiz (the "Anonymous" team were most obliging) but we were a way off first (who were "The Runnerway Winners" appropriately enough, including friends of ours Esther and Nick Clarke and Tessa Wiseman). Our honorary sixth member Charles Horsefield was devastated that his answer of Buddy Holly to the question "who wrote Brown 'Eyed Eyed Handsome Man'" was given incorrect, with the quizmasters answer being Chuck Berry. He was going to challenge this but upon a-Google-searching it seems that Mr Berry is the right answer, sorry Charles! This question gives an indication of the generational target of the quiz...

Sarah kindly imparted some of her nutritional knowledge after the meal last night, suggesting that as part of the Fairtrade Challenge I would be having a scary amount of fibre. So this might explain the grouchy stomach that I am already developing... apparently eating some chocolate would be a good idea, so I must get cracking with this today!

Well that worked! Just cooked my 3rd dinner and I knew I had to make this one more earthy with NO fruit (my stomach has been churning). So this one was going to utilise to full effect our get out clause - locally grown organic veg. So what I made was a Vegetable Stew (essentially) with Fairtrade spices (Wayfairer's curry powder set - 1.5 teaspoons of the medium one) , a few bay leaves from my garden (can't get more local and organic than that) and some Fairtrade red quinoa, with tons of black pepper. Once everything was well cooked I stuck half of it in the food processor (as you would a soup), pureed it then added it into the mix. Et voila! I feel more satisfied than I have for a couple of days, with that delightful warm sensation that only a stew/soup can give on a winters evening, except with the added tinge of spice on the lips and mouth.

We had some good news today... Angela Feavouir performed her masterful bludgoening marketing skills with an email to BBC 3 Counties Radio about what we were doing for Fairtrade Fortnight with emphasis on this challenge. I duly received a call at the shop at 4pm this afternoon asking me/us to come on the show next wednesday, which I naturally accepted. They are very happy for it to be about the shop and the full gamut of fair traded products that we sell and wanted us to bring some along. This will be my 3rd radio appearance so it doesn't raise such nerves now (it could be said that I enjoy it), but this one will be the most prime-time in our area. We also got an article in the local LB News paper, which means that this is not just gratuitous!

I succumbed to a Divine chocolate muffin this afternoon after resisting most of the fairtrade naughty goodies (of which their is plenty, so I don't want to subsist on them for two weeks, which i'm sure is possible... Flapjack for breakfast, waffle for lunch, chocolate all day, biscuits for pudding...). I have laid off the fruit a little today (just some orange juice a banana and a mandarin) as I think the acidic nature was getting uncomfortable.

Anyway, more later!

It's day one of this years Square Meal Fairtrade Challenge and i've enjoyed my first Fairtrade breakfast of the fortnight, which was made very easy by the Alara Muesli (really fruity and gorgeous) with Balance Foods Rice Drink (acting as milk substitute), washed down with Equal Exchange Earl Grey Tea (fine without milk, as the Rice Drink curdles big time) and Fruit Passion Apple Juice.

It's a lovely sunny cold and crispy morning, the type that we don't get enough of nowadays so i've been for a walk around Parsons Park to savour it and prepare for the day ahead. My parents are staying so there has already been a lot of activity in the Kidd / Curd household, as they are early risers, and I happened to wake up very early thinking about work (non-shop work) and impending challenges.

Whilst on my walk I pondered on the chances of our Fairtrade Challenge being ignored by the press, and thus not raising local awareness about how much more that you can buy fairtrade other than coffee, banana's and sugar. We have been feeling rather down about this prospect, speculating that it would be fairly worthless an ordeal. However, this morning I felt reconciled to the idea that even if it does not get any coverage and all that we can do is talk to the people that we know via those participating on the Fairtrade Leighton Linslade group and through the shop, then it has as much worth as any fast or lent based sacrifice. For two weeks every meal will be like a meditation on where our food has come from. If it is local fresh organic produce that we are eating, then I know exactly where it comes from and I can feel happy about that and picture the hilly field on which it grows on Flitton Farm. If it is the Fairtrade food, I can know that the people who have produced it have been given a fair wage for their labours and been treated with the dignity that they deserve and given rights in their community.

I am full of respect for what Fairtrade Woman and Man achieved last year (and indeed what is being done this year as Low Carbon Man) in receiving the coverage that they did and for attempting this task, unadulturated by any fresh organic veg that we have the luxury of using! I can't say that we expect or crave any such attention (especially as this is not any of our jobs to do so - all of us work full time +, which is part of the reason that we knew we needed some fresh produce other than fruit), but hope that it brings some attention to what is possible.

Big shop coming up later, trawling the local supermarkets for whatever fruit that they may have. I'm hoping for some avocado's... and also that Oxfam have some of the Wayfairer curry powder that I have heard has been stock there in the past.

----------------------------------
It's now 1:45pm and i've done my first lunch, having been starving all morning. I can't blame that on the challenge really, the problem was that I woke up early and had breakfast at 6am! So I had to snack to get me through the morning and this included a Doves Farm Apple & Sultana Flapjack (SO good), a couple of FT Mandarins from Waitrose, a FT Banana and a few squares of Blakes Chopped Almond Dark Chocolate, which we have on tasting today.

Lunch was very interesting and experimental. Normally I will be eating leftovers from the previous evenings meal, but did not have this luxury on day 1. So it was a variety of things on Balance Food FT Thick Sesame Rice Cakes. Firstly; Equal Exchange Crunchy Unsalted Peanut Butter, which worked fantastically well; secondly Equal Exchange Light Tahini with carrots (not so good); third Rowse FT Chilean Honey, which was simply gorgeous, so good that I had to have two of these!

Now just to survive till dinnertime...
------------------------------------------
Dinner was splendid, although a bit of a cuffuffle (is that actually a word?), as my mother was cooking up the meal for those not participating in the FT challenge whilst I tried to get mine done in time to eat with them. I persisted with my original planned meal of Quinoa salad with Cashew Nut and Pineapple, and it turned out well.

First of all I fried some leeks, cauliflower and carrots on a low heat with some precioius brazil nut oil whilst seeting the quinoa to boil for 15 minutes. Once the veg had softened I added pineapple and cashew nuts then added some cabbage and spices, which for this dish I chose ginger, turmeric and black pepper. Right at the end I added some honey to give it a little more substance to bind it (I didn't think that lemon or lime juice would work with the pineapple). I cooked way too much so I have plenty to have for lunch today. Andrea took a couple of pics so I will upload these later. She also tried the dish and could concur that it was entirely edible.

Conclusion to the day: Some tasty stuff, but I must admit to have been hungry a lot of the time, probably because I normally have a lot of bread and other protein based foods such as eggs, tofu, quorn or the like, so may have to look at getting more protein based foods into the diet.

END OF DAY ONE

Progress today, well I think that it is progress. I've just about finished the book Carbon Detox by George Marshall, and in the carbon bottom line calculation we came out with a minus score, which can't be quite right so I have emailed him to find out how the parameters of the "Goods and Services" section can be tweaked. Mine became distorted because we have spent so much more in the past year on our mortgage and bills than we have actually earnt. So where he is trying to work out our damage through spending from our surplus income, we have had NO surplus income!

One of my small steps forward this week has been stopping watching Match of the Day and the sports news, as well as avoiding the football news on the BBC website. You could say that this is for lent, but I hope that it would be more permanent, and comes as part of a general effort to ween myself of the small amount of TV that we watch. Apart from football we now only have Later with Jools Holland, Culture Show, any decent films that are on (we are so far behind with going to the Cinema that most things that we have missed over the past few years are now coming on TV) and a few series (Torchwood at the moment). But mainly we watch DVD's of decent tv series or films, such as West Wing at the moment, so we could watch these on the computer with far less power usage. And you don't need a license to watch things on the BBC iPlayer, so long as you aren't watching anything live. SO, I am thinking of ditching the TV at some point soon, and weening myself off football, which I have no time for, is the starting point. Now my Sunday mornings are so much more free and relaxing and every morning I can sit and eat my breakfast reading a magazine (one in the pile thats built up of Ecologists, fRoots, Songlines, Permacultures etc...), in peaceful contemplation of the day, or talk to Andrea!

So progress... but it will give me one less thing to talk about with my football fan friends. But I always get a kick out of talking to customers who have no TV who when you ask them if they have seen such a such a programme they look blank at you, and happily say "no, we don't have a television", and I smile with respect, my heart fluttering at the idea.

This blog is practice for blogging more regularly as we ramp up to Fairtrade Fortnight and needing to do a daily blog of how our Fairtrade Man / Woman task is going. Do remember to comment back if you have any comments, suggestions or criticisms as we go!

Ian

One of the main things that I have to work on (whilst Andrea devotes herself far more admirably to the Fairtrade Fashion show being held on March 7th at Vandyke School) is the "Square Meal Fairtrade Man / Woman" task that I am committing to. The decision that I and others on the local Fairtrade committee are trying to decide is how far we go with it. The original Fairtrade Man/Woman concept was to only consume fairtrade food over the fortnight and was carried out by an employee of Tear Fund and Oxfam. For us, with the limits on fresh produce available (only fruit , coconut and avocado available, if lucky), we would not be able to work the full lives we do effectively without serious lack of proteins and nutrients. At the moment the remit has been set as Fairtrade only apart from using local veg (from Flitton Hill Farm 15 miles away) and possibly local milk and eggs, though I am toying with the idea of dropping these now that we have found Fairtrade Rice Milk in Waitrose, which will mean I can have my fairtrade muesli in the morning!

The other point of discussion is what we allow in the category of "Fairtrade", whether it is Fairtrade Foundation mark products only or if we can include Traidcraft, Zaytoun (Palestinian fairtrade products such as Olive Oil, often sold through Equal Exchange), Kitchen Garden (Pasta Sauces, TVP Mince etc... I am trying to get through to them to find out more about their FairTraded claims). And we HAVE to find some FT Brazil Nut Oil IF we aren't going to allow the Olive Oil products, otherwise cooking will not be fun (I think one of our distributors does the Equal Exchange product, I just hope they have stock!).

We would appreciate any comments now prior to finalisation of the Fairtrade Fortnight flyer.

Otherwise the shop continues apace whilst I try and juggle my other (paid) work and try and have a couple of days out of the shop to do this. It can be so hard to tear myself away from the ever growing mountains of things we would like to do in the shop, either with new areas, products, campaigns, talks and just keeping up with all of our customers ideas!

We will be sending out a newsletter update soon and will eventually tie this in with blog postings, but just to say on here for any customers who do come in that we now have weighing scales, so can sell the full range of veg (and fruit eventually we hope) available locally. Some items can ONLY be sold by weight, and the scales for retail use are costly, so we have not been able to sell the Leeks & Parsnips of the current seasons range until now. At the moment we have big sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, leeks, parsnips, carrots, potatoes and onions.

WIll post again soon and hopefully more regularly, especially over Fairtrade Fortnight.

All the best, Ian

Sorry if this is short - I just wrote a long blog and lost it (the joys of myspace!).

We won the Green Business Award at the Bedfordshire Rising Stars Business Award! We were also shortlisted by the judges for the Best Business award, which is very flattering for a company that started in May!

We will upload pics when we have them, some can be found here:
http://www.leightonbuzzardonline.co.uk/news/PICTURE-GALLERY-Company-champ-reaches.3460515.jp

Thanks to everyone who has helped us get so far, contributed clothing & transport for the evening (Alexe, Gordon & Annie) and nominated us for the award (the Fairtrade Leighton Linslade group).

Thanks!

Greenways have been shortlisted in the Green Business category of the Bedfordshire Business Awards. The ceremony takes place on Thursday 8th November and Andrea and I will be scrubbing up the black tie do (Ian at least in borrowed clobber, not being something that his wardrobe extends to). We'll let you know next week if we won or not and will try and post some pics up.