exposition

this blog is my celebration.

but first, backstory. my name is mary, and I've got this weird life. I've been living in northern california for three years now, and love it. I'm just about to graduate from UCD with my BA in english and education. I'm going to teach your kids someday, how about that?

at any rate.

I live in this bitchin' aggie (about my colloquialisms and affectations - I curse like a sailor and love slang too much for a classically educated literature student =/) town that's all kinds of involved in the locavore movement. for those uninformed, urbandictionary defines locavore as such:

[noun] someone who eats food grown or produced locally or within a certain radius such as 50, 100, or 150 miles, usually for ecological reasons.

we're in the seat of yolo county, which is surrounded by farms, farms, and more farms. I work in a co-op, which you'll hear me reference often - it's one of the most amazing parts of my life. it's this alternative grocery store that focuses heavily on buying local, organic, sustainable, bioethical... you get my point. I work in the produce part, which means I've got my hands on all kinds of wonderful fruits and vegetables, most of which are grown less than 50 miles from the store.

one of the best perks about this is the NC. NC is a term you'll hear me throwing around plenty, too, so let me define it now:

[noun] any item that has been deemed unsellable, and thus, "no charge". consists of mostly damaged, past-date, or returned items.

produce is a great department for nabbing the NCs - bruised fruit, greens that fall on the ground, all of it I get to take home for dinner. for a college student who works full-time to pay rent and tuition, this is a big deal. my best girl and coworker LD and I scrounge hard, and hardly ever buy anything. because she is so righteously independent, she will not read recipes, choosing to "just make shit up". needless to say, I go over and cook for us 5 of 7 nights a week.

I have grown heavily dependent on food blogs. I'm a laissez-faire vegetarian/vegan (which means mommy chavez can guilt me into san diego chile verde and carne asada burritos whenever I go home to visit), but really strive hard to be conscious and considerate when I cook for LD and me. I've turned into a real, live freegan, which, thanks to urbandictionary, is defined as such:

[noun] 1. somebody who abstains from contributing to the economy and salvages society's wasted food and resources rather than purchase more themselves. Often pertains to a VEGAN (somebody who doesn't eat/wear animal products) who only makes exceptions when dealing with otherwise wasted items.
2. a person who, in reaction to the statistic that the west wastes 25% of all it's resources, get items from the trash that are perfectly good. It is often smelly, but hundreds of items can be found, perfectly fine, that otherwise would be wasted. Is often linked with environmentalism and activism.

so, you'll see a lot of my recipes of necessity here! I'm mostly starting this so I can stalk my blog heroes online (I love you, isa of postpunkkitchen, susanv of fatfreevegan, and heidi of 101cookbooks!), but also because I need my own system of cataloging the ones that actually turn out right! my mother believes in writing everything down, but anyone who has ever been in a kitchen ONCE knows that handwritten recipes get covered in all KINDS of mess. the internet is a safe place. we'll leave it at that for now - I'm pretty sure I have winter veggie pasta at SD's calling my name (or texting me impatiently, har har.)