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!



 
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Hello!


My market lovelies!

I am having major computer issues, and it’s been irritating trying to get it all figured out!

No long Weblogs, no song implants, no ongoing tale of my trip down the rabbit hole of bad eating….

Anyway….it is Tuesday, and we need your orders by 10pm, tonight!!

Much love!

XOXO
Cosmic Pam

Ain't No Mountain High Enough


Listen baby, ain’t no mountain high,
Ain’t no valley low, ain’t no river wide enough;
Baby if you need me call me no matter where you are,
No matter how far;
Just call my name; I’ll be there in a hurry;
You don’t have to worry,
‘Cause baby there ain’t no mountain high enough,
Ain’t no valley low enough,
Ain’t no river wide enough
To keep me from getting to you babe…
(Diana Ross-Ain’t No Mountain High Enough)

So, I am opening the market, this evening, with this song in my head. Also, inspired by a new pair of disco inspired shoes that one of my best friends gave me for one of my birthday presents, tonight!!

Ain’t no mountain high enough to keep any of us from this little local market of love!!

So, get with it, get groovy, join in, tune in…whatever motivates you, just don’t let anything keep you from ordering!!

And, thank you, everyone, for the sweet birthday wishes, all evening, at the market!! You mean the world to me!!

XOXO,
Cosmic Pam

Thank You!! And, Another Down The Rabbit Hole Installment


Hello, market customers!!

Just a quick thank you to your loveliness, this week! We watched the market jump to new action because of you, because of the impending growing season, and the return of our seasonal growers.

It’s always so nice to watch the market jump back to life, after the drab winter months!! It’s always so nice to welcome back our vendor friends during this time, AND it’s amazing to welcome back customers who go on hiatus during our winter months!! I love the grooviness of it all!!

This time of year is always a good jumping point into healthier eating, an awareness of what is growing right around us, and the ease of obtaining healthy, local food during these coming months. Thank you for starting your seasonal journey, once again!

In my third installment of my journey into food hell, the fall down the rabbit hole of processed foods, is picking up where I left off with my breakfast going off the deep end.

I am a huge lover of breakfast. My usual breakfasts are fruit, nuts, granola, toasted slices of my breads, jam, vegan pancakes, overnight granola, and power bites that I get in Yellow Springs…all things to ensure that I will ease into my day, well nourished, and not starving, before my lunch.

My days are crazy, they usually see me in the kitchen, where I bake, from morning until the late hours. I bake for customers, this market, retail, and restaurants. When I am not baking, I am working on monthly menus and deliveries for my other business, that I run with your co-manager, of this market, Mark, Hippie and the Farmer. We are also some of your produce providers, during the season, here. And, when I am out of the kitchen, I am working on my third business, The Dressed Up Hippie, my little pop up shop, featuring hippie, vintage, boho clothing.

All of this, just to say, the girl NEEDS her nutrients to get her through her crazy days!!

My lunches come late in the afternoon, so my breakfasts need to be complete. I am a vegetarian, not straight up vegan, but shun most dairy, just because it does not agree with me. So, I am creative in my food choices, and know how to get my protein. But, it’s no hate on meat and dairy…we offer the best of the best, right here!!

Moving on…my processed breakfast choices, even toasting up grocery store bread, instead of my own, was all a new great ease. When I only had to unwrap a package, stuff a sweet delight into my mouth, and gulp some coffee, I was on my way in no time!!

I would arrive to bake, getting the dough all mixed up, and suddenly, I would get so shaky, so hungry, plummeting into almost a dizzy, fainting feeling. The clock would tell me it was only 9am, but it felt like it was 4pm, and I had missed lunch. Just to get me through, I grabbed so called healthy power bars. It would help, but then an hour later, hunger, again. And fatigue!! Wow…once you crash, you get so sleepy. My answer would be more coffee, even more than usual for me. And, more sugar…candy, another power bar, another breakfast treat. Anything to keep me pumped on my full daily schedule.

And, in the coming weeks of this undercover eating, my body did begin to adapt to this vicious cycle of sugar on top of sugar on top of sugar. Sure, I would have fruit on hand, but all I could think about was another delightful hit of sugar.

I was hooked, I had become a secret sugar addict, and I didn’t care from what source it was coming from. I just had to get to my next meal.

And, here is where we will pick up, next time. My lunches that looked nothing like my usual lunches.

Oh…and sure, the weeks were flying by with my sugar, salt, and processed highs…but something else began to show up in those weeks. Well, many things began to happen, but the first thing to become noticeable was my skin, and an odd dry patch that appeared, became worse, and progressed with each week that was going by in my experiment…

See why I am so happy to see all of you back? Ordering healthy items, taking steps to begin your seasonal eating? My hope is that by writing my installments, you will be inspired to continue this type of eating, year round…

XOXO,
Cosmic Pam

High-Ho The Dairy-O!


Ok!! It’s what we have all been waiting for!!

Dairy!! It’s listed, it’s on, let’s rock and roll!

XOXO!
Cosmic Pam

Tuesday Buzz!


So, if you continue to watch for the weblog postings, today, you will find out the minute that rhubarb AND, AND, ANDDAIRY will be added!!!

The Nelson’s are trying to get their listings on, and Beth is busy, at this second, trying to get her rhubarb listed…

It’s a great Tuesday in market land!!

XOXO,
Cosmic Pam

It's Magic


I love my sunny day
Dream of far away
Dreaming on my pillow in the morning
Never been awake
Never seen a day break
Leaning on my pillow in the morning light…
(Pilot-It’s Magic)

Get your AM radio groove on…we are looking all the way back for a bit of inspiration on this Monday morning.

I have an author friend, and today, her Facebook inspiration was, Magic Monday, it’s all in the attitude. So true, and of course, the word Magic sent me to this vintage tune, and I thought what more can you ask for on a sunny day?

This is such a feel good, groovy little song of fluff. It reminds me of my West End bedroom, me, young, clock radio blasting out all that was the AM goodness. I loved that bedroom when I was growing up. It had a set of windows, that served as my windows to the world, my windows that I would sit in, because I positioned my dresser and mirror in the corner, jump up to sit on them, and I would open both sides of the windows, let the spring and summer air in, and I would dream, plan, plot, and well, yes, execute. Because, true to form of your rebel market manager, when I was older, I knew these windows were easy to unlatch the screens, and would lead me to late night escapes with neighborhood pals.

I mean, who DIDN’T do the late night escape only to return a few hours, later? The freedom, the excitement, the fun. We were not a band of troublemakers. We were not out causing problems or damaging properties. We were just pals exploring the night hours.

Anyway, looking back, it was all magical to us, then, like anything was possible. That my window, this song, would lead to all of my dreams, and plans. That my whole life was out there, waiting, wondering what I would make of it…

All very fitting thoughts for girl who grew up, lived most of those dreams, plans, and schemes, only to bring her into what is now her birthday week! Yes, my birthday is Thursday, and like each year, I look back at the magic that I have made in my life.

Maybe it’s putting magic into your life, maybe it’s putting magic into your day, maybe it’s just putting the magic into an ordinary Monday…whatever it is, make it all magic!!

And, go ahead…make the magic happen in our market with your orders!! The more you order, the more magic you will bring into your daily diet, menu plan, and health…

XOXO,
Cosmic Pam

Anticipation


All good things take time, and all that jazz!

I talked to Beth at Harrigan’s Harvest, and she just came out of the fields, but had to work at school, and assured me that as soon as she had a minute, she would add asparagus and rhubarb onto the market site!

XOXO,
Cosmic Pam

Hello, Old Friend!


As I am strolling down the garden path,
I saw a flower glowing in the dark.
It looked so pretty and it was unique;
I had to bend down just to have a peek.

Hello old friend,
It’s really good to see you once again.
Hello old friend,
It’s really good to see you once again.
(Hello, Old Friend-Eric Clapton)

Hello to old friends, old vendors, vendors who are seasonal, vendors who have been busy, and hello to our lovely dairy duo who are patiently awaiting their very last inspection to take place.

As I open the market, tonight, we say hello to…

Harrigan’s Harvest- Asparagus!!

JC Growers-Back from hiatus!!

Oakview Farm Meats has added popular items back to their listings!!

Swisher Hill Herbs as a whole lot of live plant action happening!!

Each week will bring more and more of your favorites of the season!!

And, in the next week to two weeks…our local Dugan Creamery!!

Along with all of our old friends, we have the weekly vendors with all of your favorite items…

Go ahead…say hello…

XOXO,
Cosmic Pam

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

Going Down The Rabbit Hole


And if you go chasing rabbits, and you know you’re going to fall…
(Jefferson Airplane-White Rabbit)

First of all…I hope that all of our lovely market customers and vendors had smashing Easter weekends!! The weather was beautiful. Perfect for ushering in the season.

So, now for the title, lyric, theme for today’s and a series to come, through my Weblog writing.

While it would make sense that I am carrying over the Easter groove with the whole White Rabbit song pick, it really isn’t. If you see the lyric, and the title of Falling Down The Rabbit Hole, you know I am about to lead you on a trip…a journey…a series of disturbing Weblogs.

Yes…I am getting ready to unveil my own undercover adventure that I began on New Year’s Day. An adventure that I chose to keep entirely to myself. I knew that if I were to utter even a word of it to those closest to me, my best pals, anyone at all…they would call me crazy, they would not let me hear the end of it if my mission failed, and well, basically, they would have pulled me out of the rabbit hole. But, I was determined to fall. Determined to go undercover to once and for all, prove that I really have been right, all along. That I am not crazy. That all of these years in the local food scene, all of the time spent in baking, preaching nutrition, fighting for the markets that I have managed, to have only real food, locally produced food, knowing your food, standing behind the slow food movement, to grab organic when local is not in season, to shun processed food, fast food, bad food, empty food, really was the way to go.

You see, in December, I was facing so many negative forces, all at once. I was doubting what I have been doing. I was getting feedback, much like I always get feedback from naysayers that the way I eat, the way I run markets, the way I bake, the so called expense of eating good food, real food, slow food was not feasible, and that food was just food.

For nine years I have listened about how people can get bread for .99 at one or more of our local stores. I have stood in front of people talking about this market, only to be told that I know nothing of what I am talking about. I don’t even remember what really started to wear me down, but I know that I closed the door to my shop, the end of December, and decided to start my dark journey, so that I could bring you my findings. And, I also knew that if the naysayers were really right, and that food didn’t matter, then I would have to seriously consider stepping away from all that I believe in and support.

So yes…I went undercover, falling down the rabbit hole of my secret life of a processed eater. I had to do it in private, I had to shop in secret, and I had to hide what really became an addiction. I have a very known face, personality, car, and local platform. I was not going to let my public witness my grocery shopping experiment or my fast food experiment. It was hard lurking in the shadows. But, I gave myself a three month experiment, ending on March 31.

In my Down The Rabbit Hole Weblog series, I will take you down that path, that hole, and then how hard it was to come back out to my regular way of eating, my regular health, my food budget, etc.

The results were not pretty…and, this is why I believe, even more, in the importance of this local food movement, and this market, as well as my other businesses.

I became your poster girl for bad food. I took one for the team, just to prove, once and for all, that my stand is not for nothing…

So, with this entry to the series…get your orders ready for the week. We always seem to get busy over a holiday, and forget to order. We close, tomorrow evening…don’t be late…

XOXO,
Cosmic Pam