Feeding People

4:30 am on April 10th, 2017 and my thoughts are on the food I will be furnishing for a gathering  tonight, the breakfast meal I need to produce in a few minutes and the tiramisu that my daughter wants me to make for her workplace. Since preparing my first sit down dinner in 1975, I have thought about feeding people. A couple years later, I would have my first job working in a restaurant and begin learning about prep work, seasonings and the fickle palate of the American public.

The first meal I remember making was breakfast. I was learning to read quite well, so following a recipe was easy enough. Mom taught me that that a capital "T" meant a tablespoon and the lowercase was for a teaspoon. It was not until I actually made my first waffles that I was introduced to measuring spoons. Instead of the spoons we used to set the table for meals, there were these thin metal ones that rested inside each other and were connected on a ring. Those measuring spoons are in the drawer in which I keep my baking paraphernalia to this day.

When I was a young person, my dad worked and mom took care of the house and my younger siblings while I was dazzling my first grade teacher with my brilliance. I walked about a mile, through our San Souci neighborhood, in Jacksonville, Florida to Greenfield Elementary School swinging my lunchbox and singing the songs I had memorized from listening to the albums or 45s that my mom played while she washed dishes or mopped the kitchen floor. Of course a child's mind makes the words fit what she "knows". So, "Guantanamera", a song from Cuba, became "One Ton of 'Matoes" in my little girl mind. The crossing guard changed my tune to "Summer Time" and the words made sense and some other kids sang along here and there. The living was easy for children unaware of the lives being lost in Vietnam, having no real understanding of the meanings behind most of the popular songs of the late '60s.

That same walk home in the afternoon sun made me hungry. My mom would have home made whole wheat bread just coming out of the oven as I walked through the front door. After changing in to play clothes, my snack was a thick cut piece of that warm bread, lathered with butter (made in a quart sized Ball jar from the cream atop our raw milk) and honey, followed by a big glass of cold milk. I did not realize how good I had it; I wanted a sandwich (like the other kids) made from Wonder bread and Skippy peanut butter and wanted to have a glass of Ovaltine with it. My mom was not going to spend her food money on that stuff, so I had to ask for it when I was out with my Grandmother Norma. She would buy my requested brands and give the cute guy that put them in the trunk of her car a quarter.

My grandmother did her share of cooking to feed the people. The people, were hungry men that worked at the shipyard and came to her tavern at lunch time to eat her chili or ham sandwiches and have a draft beer. When we went to visit her at work, I was always allowed to have a huge dill pickle and I got to have a bottle of coke with a pack of salted peanuts in it and sometimes a piece of chocolate candy that had a cherry in the middle and some sweet syrup  surrounding it. I heard different music on the big jukebox in the corner than what was played at home. I remember twisting my body to music by a guy named Chubby and throwing my arms up and down to do the jerk or holding my nose and bobbing around to act like I was swimming. Life was great fun.

Now, nearly fifty years later, I am the grandmother making home made banana bread for one set of grandchildren and biscuits and white gravy for the other set. The young ones dance, uninhibited, to music that has a great beat, but they have no understanding of the lyrics. I have fed thousands of people in my life, but none of the praise matters nearly as much as hearing my grandkids say "it is good! DD can I have more?"  Yes, love, you may have as much as you like until it is gone.

Until later ~ Rita

First Day of the Week

It's Sunday morning at 5:45, I have had my breakfast of home made chocolate chip cookies and am sipping my morning coffee from Papua, New Guinea. I have a friend that lives there and gardens for his living. As I drink this enhanced bean water (cream and sugar), I contemplate the vast differences between the life Apollos lives across the globe and the one I am living in Suwannee county, FL.

After realizing that I can not possibly know what another person's life feels like, I focus on my life -- what it is and what it is not.

I live in the comfort of a nation in which I can boldly state my belief that human beings are created in the similitude of God. Some of my friends might think me foolish for that belief, but we can agree to disagree without one of us having to be jailed. This is not so in some nations. I have another friend, (a messianic Jew) that visits his wife's family in Cuba each year. While there he preaches the words of Yeshua, but could be arrested for doing so. Although it is not my intent to preach, I could, if I wanted, and not have to fear arrest because I am a Christian or because I am a woman. That is the privilege I have because I am a citizen of the USA. I am grateful that I was born to parents that were born and raised in this country.

I have several friends that are naturalized citizens, they went through the processes necessary to make this land their permanent home. None of them take for granted the great freedoms we have and as far as I can see, they all work and appreciate the living conditions here. One friend related the amazement she felt from her first visit to a grocery store here in the US. She had never seen many of the packaged foods and was flabbergasted by the options in the produce section and how meats were portioned, wrapped, and refrigerated. Unless one has traveled to other parts of the world, it is hard to understand how much we have here. It is difficult to get young people to understand that we are not better people just because we have easier lives. Many in the US seem to confuse birthright privileges with entitlement. We, who were born here, should be happy that we have a free enterprise system. That we can, with few restrictions, conduct business to make money for ourselves and our families.

My coffee is cold and I must take my daughter to her workplace. I will jump down from my soapbox and get to the tasks I have planned for this day. I encourage you readers to consider your life and be grateful.

Until later ~ Rita

It Has Been A While

March 18, 2017 will go down in my personal history as a good day. I was able to enjoy the morning. I read some scriptures that helped me to solidify my faith. I saw some friends and spoke on the phone with some others. The texts and emails made me smile. I had a healthy dinner and am settling in to the evening with a cup of coffee and some banana trifle.

I have been at home alone, this week, while my daughter was in Canada; it was my first real taste of empty nest. It was fine. I got through it. I found that I can handle my own company and when I need more, friends and other family are there for me. All I have to do is ask. I think, in my darkest times, I probably turned down invitations from every friend I had and now it is my turn to ask.

Table at Sunrise Coffee Shop

Here is the skinny on me: I am a fun-loving person, with a back that is not fun, I am unemployed, but I work as hard as I can to make a couple of bucks by selling cheese and milk from the dairy of my extended family. I am a widow and a grandmother, a foodie and a music lover. The only drama I enjoy anymore is a TV show called "This Is Us". I have a creative side that wants to sew and paint and re-purpose old furniture. That same creativity is utilized more often in the kitchen creating new combinations of food.

My latest creation is a quite tasty pimento cheese made from Wainwright Dairy and Creamery chipotle cheese. When you make your way to Sunrise Coffee Shop in Madison, FL you could try some if Moruna is feeling gracious (which is always.) She has the only place that serves my exact recipe. I am also ASKING that you buy a block or wedge of cheese while you are there.

Until next time ~Rita

Working in the Kitchen

Yesterday I whipped up some mango muffins, mango-coconut bread and a batch of banana mini muffins to sell at the Live Oak Farmer's Market. I got set up and sold to a few regular customers before the sky opened up and rained down on the five vendors that came to market yesterday. I am very thankful for the people that vote for having these very fresh products with their dollars.

My chocolate milk lovers make me smile. We try to stay away from the sugar and the full fat, but nothing in this world tastes exactly like the Wainwright Dairy and Creamery Chocolate Milk! Today I am making waffles with it. Then I will have chipotle cheese grilled on chocolate waffle. The mango muffins and the pepper jack cheese was lunch for three of us yesterday in the rainstorm -- that combination was sensational.

I am still exploring all the cheese choices from Wainwright's stock. Yesterday I was introduced to Olive Cheddar. I am an olive fan and if you are too, this cheese is a MUST try. Today I will be trying the parmesan, and the Swiss. I will not sell it, if I won't eat it. I sell what I love, because I do not believe in lying.

I went to Mayo, FL this morning, to The Southern Biscuit Company. I met a friend and his nephews for brunch and we had an opportunity to exercise our patience while waiting for our food to be cooked and delivered. I must say that it was delicious. The fried green tomatoes were VERY GOOD!
Bart Byrd the owner-operator bought a gallon of Wainwright Chocolate Milk from me and I encourage anyone who happens by there to ask for it.

Tomorrow, Thursday, June 30th, I will be headed to the High Springs Farmer's Market and I pray I do not get soaked again. The Wainwright Dairy and Creamery Pepper- Jack cheese will be my sale item and I will also have the mango muffins. A person could make their own little snack sandwiches like I have pictured above. 

I really appreciate anyone that shares my blog or the Milk Maverick Facebook posts. Thank you so much.

The Kefir Keeper

I am not a natural salesperson. I do not have the face for it (my oldest daughter says it is called RBF.) However, when I love something, I can not help but talk about it in an animated way. When I do not like something, I try to remember what grandmother told me "never say anything you would not want printed on the front page of the newspaper." I tell you this to say, I have to taste the stuff I sell or I can not sell it. Every batch of cheese is slightly (or greatly) different, every bottling of milk, especially the chocolate, which requires cooking the chocolate and adding the sugar has the potential to taste differently than the last.

I am learning so much about foods that I used to just consider as ingredients. Kefir is a beverage/food that never crossed my frame of reference until a couple of years ago when my youngest daughter needed it for her gut. I did not try it at that time, but she referred to it as "drinkable yogurt." I had eliminated dairy from my diet at that time to see if my inflammation problem would go away (that is a story for another day) so I had no interest in tasting the kefir. I tasted it last week, and it tastes like drinkable yogurt. The following article gives more information and has gotten me more interested in using the product to which I have access.

http://ecowatch.com/2015/03/27/health-benefits-kefir/      Sorry about all the ads, but I did not want to steal their content. Great information. I guess being a MILK MAVERICK is going to make me smarter and healthier.

Weston Price a voice with authority

So many of my friends that cannot drink pasteurized milk do fine drinking raw milk. This article is very informative, please take a few moments to read it, if you haven't already. Points 5,11, 12 & 15 were particularly of interest to me, because of all the many friends and loved ones these problems have affected.

http://www.realmilk.com/commentary/15-things-that-milk-pasteurization-kills/

I drink and sell the milk from Wainwright Dairy and Creamery. Over the last two years strides have been made to transition from being a dairy like any other to providing milk from cows that are not given antibiotics unless they are sick and quarantined from the others. These cows are out in the Suwannee County, Florida sun every day, their offspring are raised on a pasture land less than a mile away. I was just watching and filming the brothers Wainwright piling eighty acres of feed for the coming year. The seeds for their fields are non-GMO originally from the Amish, but now can be planted again from seed saving.
It is my plan to, in conjunction with Do Good Media, have a film put together about Wainwright Dairy and Creamery, the family, the birth to grave of being on the farm,( people and cows) and the thought processes that have changed over the last 40 years.

None of this happens over night. It took me fifty years to come to the realization of how self absorbed and uninformed I was about what I was putting in my body for fuel and supposed nutrients. Until Later ~ Rita "MilkMaverick" Haynes

Learning as I go; It is never too late, If you are breathing, you can learn.

Let me be perfectly honest, I came in to this milk and cheese sales by the grace of God and totally out of my own need. If you read my intro you know I am in the latter part of middle age (0-30 = young, 31-60 = middle, 61-80 = old, 81- death = wow you must have done well on keeping the 5th commandment.) I have been out of my usual work, since my husband died in September 2013. My health has not been excellent in a long time and my back is a constant source of debilitation. I needed a way to make some money without being locked to a desk eight hours a day.

I, like most Americans, grew up drinking milk. I mostly drank it out of the bowl after eating my morning cereal, in the school lunchroom and with any desserts after dinner while I still lived in my parents home. Cheese was a food that I do not remember enjoying as a child. I remember as a small child having a bite of my dad's roast beef sandwich that had Swiss cheese on it and thinking that it was terrible. My mom, like so many others, was a Velveeta user. Until I was maybe 20 years old, I had never had a real cheese, grilled cheese sandwich. Cottage cheese and cream cheese were used in our household, but hard cheeses were not a staple there.

I grew up somewhat sheltered, it did not occur to me that one human being would feed another human being something that was not food ( well there was that one time the base bully tried to get me to eat dried dog poop, but even at four years old, I knew better than to do that.) What I am getting at is that I thought if it was in the grocery store on the shelves it was food. That is not necessarily so.

I have had difficulties keeping my weight under control since I had my third child at age 31, so I have read lots of diet books. I exposed myself to information about calories in vs. calories out ad nauseam. Most of those books I read never touched on the chemicals in our packaged foods, the books were based on the food pyramid put out by the FDA the same FDA that determines whether food is safe for our consumption. For my part, I am learning that just because something is approved by the FDA doesn't mean I want to eat it, and some things they do not approve are proving to be better for my personal health. All this was a lead in to a link I wanted to share here : http://dontwastethecrumbs.com/2014/03/30-additives-in-dairy-products-you-should-know-about/