The sky is falling...

I would like to preface this post by stating that I'm not a pinko commie liberal nor am I a tea party member... I'm sort of moderate with very conservative views on government and NOT progressive as that's just progressing away from the fundamental rights we've been granted in the Constitution. I am an environmentalist to a degree as in stop pumping crap into my water supply and for the love of all that is holey stop contaminating pet food and clean up the salmonella! What is that? Having stated my position, please continue reading-

This week I've been following a story about the Rawsome food co-op. According to Natural News, a SWAT style raid was carried out on a tiny warehouse in Los Angeles to serve a search warrant for organic raw milk and raw milk products. Agents of the Center for Disease Control, the Federal Drug Administration, local county sheriff's deputies, and other assorted law enforcement personnel donned flak vests, armed themselves with automatic weapons, and launched a full scale assault on the Rawsome food co-op confiscating nearly everything in the store, including fruit, vegetables, and grains. They dumped the milk down the drain, loaded the vegetables and fruit onto a flatbed truck, and arrested the owner and another two people for conspiracy.

Two points I think are important to mention: 1) selling raw milk and raw milk products is legal in the state of California. and 2) Even if the raw milk isn't good for you, we live in America where people can smoke cigarettes and even marijuana in many places now, drink alcohol, and bungee jump over a pit of alligators if that's what you want to do... cos we're Merikuns. At least that's how my granddad would have said that. "Leave me alone with my pipe full of poison toxins princess, I'm a-Merikun and I can do whatever I want. The Constitution tells me so." Grandpa wasn't an educated man but he was smart about stuff having to do with rules and whatnot.

 Another important point is the fact that law enforcement people have many regulations and policies that govern their operations. I thought it was reciprocity but that's something else... it's like if you're serving a search warrant on a known criminal enterprise, such as narcotics sales, then yes it makes perfect sense to launch a paramilitary SWAT type assault on the house to lock up the traffickers as they are routinely armed and willing to perform criminal acts. Likewise on a hostage situation where an assailant is armed. It's the law of equal force or something like that... and this SWAT thing  isn't something you would do if a farmer's permits are not filed with the right office or a man let his business license lapse, right? Yeah well, apparently the conspiracy charges have something to do with the co-op's owner not having the correct permit to sell raw milk. Still it's reaching to expect this place to be smuggling or armed.

Wow. So the next time you get pulled over for speeding, and the officer pulls his weapon and demands I get down on the ground instead of reaching for my license and registration... that's apparently not an extreme example in light of the latest news.

The gentleman who owns the co-op was released today on bond (something like 100k) and his "co-conspirators" are under a "gag" order so they can't discuss the case. Wow. The sky is falling when the SWAT team negotiators come in to confiscate my mangoes from my kitchen.

The sky is falling when people can't discuss events such as this with the public. The sky is falling cos we're Merkuns and this is happening in our most liberal of states... I honestly felt like I had been taking crazy pills the more I watched and more I read. Come on guys, really? Do you really feel like you're justified treating Rawsome like Waco? Do you guys seriously think that we Merikuns are just going to stand around and watch you remove our food sources one by one and leave us stranded with a box of Tuna Helper and some frozen pizzas and we'll be good? No. No, I don't believe that the folks I know will stand for it. They may not be as righteously indignant as I am but I'm not going to stop trying to get them as fired up as I am.

About

Who is the woman in my kitchen? For many years my mother was the woman in my kitchen. My mother...not only taught me my eating habits, but also how to make cornbread, and insisted on feeding me bell peppers even though I so detested them and fought her like Conan the Barbarian. My mother taught me good habits and bad. Mom and I still discuss the heavy stuff in the kitchen like church, boyfriends, family, the latest neighborhood events, and dog training....

She is still a huge influence in my life but I have followed my own path, have my own opinions, and have my own passions... not only for food, but for life, for spirit, for friends, and even my own struggles and events in my neighborhood.

As for food--I like eating it and cooking it. I even like shopping for it on some weird level. It's almost spiritual, almost Zen. It’s not the grocery market that I like, it’s the ritual of finding a recipe that sounds delish, making a list, finding ingredients (hopefully on sale), coming up with a side dish or integrating whatever it is into my whole day, spending the time preparing the ingredients, then putting everything together in such a way they blend and magically turn into curry chicken or yellow squash casserole.

Now that I am the woman in my kitchen cooking is both a ritual and a frustrating journey. My food philosophy isn’t limited by denial… truth is I like to eat, and I like to eat what I like to eat. I tried that raw vegan thing, plain old vegetarian, super low carb (almost exclusively meat), low carb/low sugar, no sugar, low fat, low calorie... if you can come up with a program I've probably tried it. I admit it.... I’m still fat, miserable, and suffering from health problems that I don’t like to focus on but that often govern my choices.

In this blog you'll find The Woman in My Kitchen is part agony aunt, part humorist, an aspiring gardener, part spiritualist, part ranty dieter, and completely insane. I’m on a journey here not only to untangle information I can find about our nation’s food supply, and what’s good nutrition, but the struggles of growing your own food, the infuriating parts of dating and limitations of my current career choices,along with life as I know it and some of the things I've learned as a veteran, childless, divorced broad with a spoiled little dog searching for answers in the big bad world. Take a seat, have a drink, and let's get to know each other.