The Weblog

The local foods movement is alive and well in Champaign County! Here are some updates on other projects while we finalize our virtual market:

Local Producers Map:
Our local producers map is ready for publication and you will soon be able to find it on gochampaign.com. Copies will be distributed around the community, in the local telephone book, and other “hangouts”. The guide lists the location and contact information for nearly 50 local producers within our county. The map was a project of the Local Food Council and printed with the help of some local sponsors including the Monument Square District, Champaign Bank, the Community Improvement Corporation, the Chamber of Commerce, the Farm Bureau and others. It is a great start to finding a local source for Champaign County’s finest!



 
View the Complete Weblog

Take A Walk On The Wild Side


She said, hey babe, take a walk on the wild side,
Said, hey honey, take a walk on the wild side…
(Lou Reed-Take A Walk On The Wild Side)

So, good evening, market customers…It’s just your market manager, on this beautiful Tuesday evening, reminding you that we close the market, this evening, at 10pm, and we want you along for the fun. Get your orders in…

And, while we are taking this walk on the wild side, I thought this song and lyric would be the perfect launching pad for my jump from my usual healthy eating, down into the rabbit hole.

First, this song…so many fun memories of parties, clubs, this song, a tale of flowers being sent to me, with only this song lyric on the card, sent from an old friend, who wanted to ask me to junior/senior prom, but alas, I had already received a prom date, minutes before the flowers and card. If only he had been a few seconds speedier.

But, that just all sums up my love of Lou Reed, and this song. And, I suppose it serves as the background music for this dark tale. I mean, every leap into the dark gets a background song, right? Every entrance deserves a song, every exit deserves a song.

As I wrote in my first installment, it was December, dismal, full of decision making time, full of question asking time.

I had come to the end of my shop lease, after two years. While I loved my little shop, I had reached a point of exhaustion. I was burning the candle at both ends, and then burning about 20 more ends. Busy, stressed out, trying to keep up with a physical shop front, wanting to take back my gypsy ways, sad that the vibe all around had shifted. When I was making the decision on renewing my lease, I made the quick response of no. Just no. I was good with the decision. But, after I was firm on not returning, I started to look around, and got that bittersweet feeling where you know it’s the right move, but it’s still sad, all in all.

So, there you have me, at that point. Add into it my other businesses of Cosmic Charlie and Hippie and the Farmer. One was doing great. One was not getting the love that it needed from me. My baby, my first business, my heart and soul, Cosmic Charlie, was taking a back seat, because I had been so over committed. Then, it seemed like out of nowhere, there were food naysayers, all around me. Mocking, questioning why I do what I do, wondering why it’s so important to believe that we are what we eat, and to be honest, the bad vibes were getting to me. I felt them from our market customers, I felt them from bread customers, I felt them from everyone.

Suddenly, everyone seemed to have something to say, about what I do, work for, believe in, strive for…and, for the first time in nine years, I let it take me down.

I was tired of everyone proclaiming one of the mass produced food services, around town, as the second coming. I was tired of fighting the good fight, the local fight, the clean fight. I wanted to throw in the towel, but my little fighter voice told me…not just yet.

So, I closed up shop, moved my stuff into my studio/office, regrouped, relaunched my branding, my businesses, and decided that the only way I could once and for all put the naysayers at bay, was to take that walk on the wild side.

And there it began…New Year’s Day 2017. My vegetarian/real food/slow food/whole food went on a date with my alter ego…the processed food/fast food/preservative food from origins unknown other half. I mapped out my plan, and wanted it to take me until April 1.

This tale is not about me sitting in the dark, gorging myself just to prove a point. I took it one day at a time, one meal at a time, and decided that I would eat like the naysayers had been bullying about. My journey was going to be a day to day tale. I was going to take my eating habits from television, ads on the internet, the quick grabs at grocery stores, and the fast food lanes of assorted dining disasters.

I began on New Year’s Day…and, I remember that I kicked it off with a processed food breakfast. I was sure it was a breakfast that most busy people would just grab and think nothing about. I kept hearing about no time to make a decent breakfast. It was too expensive to eat healthy. Nobody cares about breakfast. Well, I ALWAYS cared about breakfast. I made time to make it from healthy food. I made time to stock my pantry, fridge and cabinets with things that would help me start my day. But, I was going down the rabbit hole, so I started that day with a Little Debbie Honey Bun, coffee, and did keep my banana. I figured bananas must be like the fast food fruit to these naysayers who had no time.

So, there I was…coffee, banana, Little Debbie. I had been seeing more and more commercials, on the COOKING NETWORK, about busy moms handing out prepackaged bags of Little Debbie treats to the kids for breakfast on the road to school. I thought, well, okay!! If kids’ minds were fueled by this for school, I would fuel me with it.

Day 1…who knew this first breakfast would be the first addiction, and the one that would begin the journey of my tale of odd skin and hair problems, and, in month 3, my biggest eye opener of unwanted fat from processed sugar.

My new way of breakfasting was pumping me full of refined sugars, empty fuel, fat calories, a rollercoaster of sugar highs and lows, and hunger pains before the mornings were over, leading me to binge on more empty food, just to get me to the next bridge of food hell…processed lunches.

But, let’s stop, right here…the Little Debbie addiction didn’t just stop after a few mornings. And, the damage was not known, immediately. It didn’t take long, but it was after every other red flag was waving that I was on the road to a food trip of crash and burn proportions…

Let’s end this installment, right here…

Let’s use this time to make decisions, at this last hour…let’s not go the Little Debbie highway to hell, and let’s take a moment to order from our market.

In the next installment, you will learn how just my morning dabblings, sent my hair and skin into a complete freaked out mess. And, we have not even left the breakfast horror, yet.

I am going to go order…will you all join me?

XOXO,
Cosmic Pam