(I'm really posting this on June 14, 2008. These are excerpts from a post I made on my LiveJournal blog on February 28, 2008.)
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As a reminder of where I left off, on Jan 15 Dawn and I attended a showing of King Corn, which gave me even more reasons to think about eating local and changing my food buying habits. So what have we been up to since?
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Amazon's Return Policy
Of the 3 books I received on Jan. 22, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan definitely had the biggest impact on me. This is the biggest of the Very Important Topics that I want to write about later. (You've been warned.)
Unfortunately, when I received it, I noticed that this last 20 or so pages were miscut. They were smaller than normal and were still joined together. I could have just sliced them open and ignored the fact that they were small, but since I had 2 other books that I could read while I waited for this one to be replaced, I decided to return it.
I checked the packing slip for their return policy and saw that there was a web address to handle that. At that web page, I selected the book that I wanted to return and entered a description of the reason for the return. Amazon then displayed for me a postage paid return label to print and told me that a new copy of the book would be shipped to me. I would then have 30 days to return the old copy.
Nice! If I finished the other 2 books quickly, I would still be able to read The Omnivore's Dilemma while waiting for the replacement to arrive! (As it so happens, I did just that.) And as an added bonus, the box that they were shipping the replacement copy in would be exactly the right size to ship back the defective copy!
Making a return doesn't get much easier than that!
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Schwan's is Going Bye-Bye... But Not Yet
After reading Plenty, I resolved to start getting more of my food from local sources. After watching King Corn, I resolved to eliminate corn-fed beef from my diet. After reading The Omnivore's Dilemma, I resolved to eliminate all industrial animal products from my diet.
But then on Feb. 5, the Schwan's delivery guy showed up, as he does every Tuesday. We still bought some stuff, but it was much less than we've bought in the past.
These things take time!
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Dinner at the Davises'
On Friday, Feb. 8, we went to Eric & Patty's house for dinner. Patty had given up meat for Lent, which meant she was cooking vegetarian anyway, so they decided to invite us over to help with the eating. Lando, Sarah, and Rose spent the majority of the time down in the basement playing, carefully watched over by the wireless closed-circuit camera that Eric had installed.
I mentioned my new interest in avoiding industrial agriculture and buying more locally grown whole foods. That triggered some disturbing flashbacks for Patty. Apparently her childhood involved large amounts of boiled oats, corn meal mash, and lard. Somehow, when I think of fresh whole foods, none of those 3 items features prominently. Her mother was Amish, so perhaps that had something to do with it. I don't know.
In any case, if my weekly CSA box consists primarily of oats and lard, I'll skip it next year. I don't think that's very likely, however.
Amazon Prime
Also on Feb. 8, I ordered yet more stuff from Amazon: 2 books & 4 DVDs -- In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto; How to get your Kid to Eat: But Not Too Much; Who Killed the Electric Car?; Super Size Me; Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price; and The Corporation. (As you might imagine, there was some Very Important Topics in there.)
And I finally broke down and signed up for Amazon Prime, which means free 2-day shipping on many items and free standard shipping on everything. It costs $79 per year, but given how often we're ordering from Amazon, I think it's worth it.
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Freethinkers Meetup
Feb. 16 was the 3rd Saturday of the month, and for a change I made it to the Freethinkers Meetup at Buffet King. None of the food was local, I'm sure, and no doubt it was all industrial, but I at least avoided the beef and pork, limiting myself to fish and some chicken.
I don't remember exactly how the topic came up, but at some point I started talking about The Omnivore's Dilemma. Yes, I've become that guy, the one who's constantly talking about whatever food kick he's currently on! I'll try not to be that guy for very long; I promise!
In any case, it's sort of a difficult topic for me to talk about, because it's complex and I find that I can seldom get more than a single sentence out before I'm interrupted. Given that I was raised not to interrupt others when their speaking, I then find myself waiting for a chance to continue my thought. And after I get out a second sentence, I'm interrupted again! Part of it is my speaking style. I tend to want to lay out the evidence and then state the conclusion. This takes multiple sentences.
Okay, I admit it -- I can run on quite a bit. But if you got this far in this post, you already knew that, didn't you?
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Schwan's Delivery Shrinks Further
Feb. 19 was another Schwan's delivery. We cut this one back even further, getting just a couple of cheese pizzas and some ice cream.
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