May 11th and Day 9 of the quest. (If this is your first time reading Five-Foot Nothin', read post 'Blowing It' for quest explanation).
If you are a regular FFN reader, then you know that on May 10th I committed to writing a cookbook with proceeds going to The Arizona Partnership to End Childhood Hunger. If not -- Well, now you are up to speed on today's adventure.
I woke up today and had a panic attack. A cookbook? Did I seriously just promise I'd write a cookbook in the next couple months? The tough questions began stabbing my brain:
- What is the theme of this book?
- What type of recipes?
- How many recipes?
- How much is it going to cost to produce the book?
- Who's going to publish it?
- How many copies should I print?
- How will I sell it?
- What about pictures?
And then I remembered something I once told a good friend of mine from Tennessee: "As soon as I get the vision for my project, I'm in over my head." Truer words, I have never spoken.
My ability to think big has never matched my stature. And I have never let the fact that my big ideas are more than I can handle. stop me. That where all of my smart friends and colleagues have always come in. Collaboration is always the way to go to really get things done -- And done well. I'll take all the brains I can borrow and enjoy learning from experts who are much smarter in a particular area than I am.
But in order to get help, you have to have a clear enough vision to know what you are asking for -- A clear and defined of your intention and what your ideal is like.
I needed to slow down -- To take a step back and think what it was I really wanted to accomplish. Well, that was simple: To preserve the health and welfare of children by ensuring they are never without good food.
Eureka! That was it. It would not be enough to simply raise money to buy food for hungry children. It is essential that the food in their stomachs is truly nourishing -- without harmful artificial toxins or pesticides. And...As long as we are feeding the children the best foods, why not 'feed' their local community by highlighting the importance of buying locally grown and produced foods?
There was no doubt in my mind. The cookbook would be themed around the Slow Food Movement. In case you are not familiar:
Slow Food is an international movement founded by Carlo Petrinicuisine in 1986. It strives to preserve traditional and regional and promotes farming of plants, seeds and livestock characteristics of the local ecosystem.
The Slow Food movement incorporates a series of objectives within its mission, including:
- forming and sustaining seed banks to preserve heirloom varieties in cooperation with local food systems
- developing an "Ark for Taste" for each ecoregion, where local culinary traditions and foods are celebrated
- preserving and promoting local and traditional food products, along with their lore and preparation
- promoting "taste education"
- educating consumers about the risks of fast food
- educating citizens about the drawbacks of commercial agribusiness and factory farms
- educating citizens about the risks of monoculture and reliance on too few genomes or varieties
- lobbying against government funding of genetic engineering
- lobbying against the use of pesticides
- teaching gardening skills
- encouraging ethical buying in local marketplaces
From time to time, Slow Food intervenes directly in market transactions; for example, Slow Food was able to preserve four varieties of native American turkey by ordering 4,000 of their eggs and commissioning their raising and slaughtering and delivery to market.
So, not only had I found a theme to the cook book in this day's adventure, but an improvement of my vision -- The inclusion of The Slow Food Movement.
Oh, and by the way -- the working title of the book: Slow and Tempting.
356 more adventures and stories to go in the quest. If you like what you read, please feel free to post your comments, subscribe or pass it along. Thank you for reading...
- Dolores McKay
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