Winter Solstice

On the Winter Solstice I dug up Jerusalem Artichokes, carrots and leeks from the garden. We added our garden potatoes, butternut squash and garlic to create a delicious stew for our solstice celebration. It was gratifying, on the darkest day of the year, to harvest and cook food we grew ourselves!

There were several things I thought about as I was digging up the root vegetables:

1/ These are not nice pretty veggies when you first see them! They are dirty and messy when you dig them up and it takes some cleaning and peeling to have an attractive meal. This always gives me a different perspective on food than I get when I buy the same thing in the grocery story where everything is clean and neat. I become aware of how much work goes into putting food on the shelves in the store.

2/ I wondered what it would be like to HAVE to harvest our food all winter. What would it be like if we had to be more self sufficient? It took a long time to dig up the vegetables, and clean, peel, and cook them. How would our lives be different if we had to do this kind of work every day in order to eat? Of course, we would be a lot more efficient and I wouldn't be out in the garden in my pajamas, but it would still be a much different way of life than we have now.

We had a lovely root vegetable stew by candle light and appreciated our delicious food as well as the warmth and light we were blessed with.