Budget Wine Recommendation for Valentine’s Day

Are you planning on serving a nice big steak to your sweetie for Valentine’s Day? Have you looked at the price of rib eyes? I think I’d really have to like someone a lot to spend $15 on a steak! But, if you have someone in your life worth taking out a second mortgage for, and if you have your heart set on a big old hunk of red meat, I have a wine recommendation that won’t break your budget too badly. It’s a really nice cab, complex, balanced with overtones of blackberry and vanilla and I found it in my local wine store for around $20. Typically, I look for less expensive bottles, but this one is worth it if you are having a nice steak and want a real treat. It drank more like a $40 bottle to me, so I thought it was a bargain.

Happy Sweetheart Day!

xxoo,

RMW

An Argument for Local Food, Part III

For the beginning of this essay, please click “She Loves”

But is a return to our pastoral roots of small family farms really the answer? It is as far as the pollution problem is concerned. Small farming operations typically don’t need the large amount of chemicals that industrial farming requires. Industrial farming is based on the idea of growing a lot of one commodity which is like an invitation to lunch for insects and diseases that thrive on that one item. Diversity is usually the rule on smaller farms making them less enticing and so better able withstand attacks from pests and diseases without chemicals. Livestock and crops grown together form a strong alliance against the need for chemicals. Michael Pollan makes a case in his book The Omnivore’s Dilemma for a return to the farm of the past where the grass feeds the cows and the cow’s manure feeds the grass.

Critics contend that industrial farming is an important component of our modern economy. It creates jobs and profits and assures the world of a cheap, consistent food supply. This is true to some extent in the world market. Dismantling industrial food production would be devastating to the economy as a whole. Strong local economies however, are essential to a strong national economy. By supporting local farmers, consumers can keep money in their communities. Movement of money is essential to the economy as Judith Schwartz states in an article in Time Magazine, “The idea is that if currency circulates more quickly, the money passes through more hands-and more people have had the benefit of the money and what it has purchased for them”. So, the farmer makes a profit, the local feed store makes a profit, the local hardware store makes a profit and all of those profits are taxed. Those tax dollars are a benefit to the economy and society as a whole. While it is true that large food corporations are also large employers, an argument can be made that smaller, more labor intensive farming operations actually employ more people per acre than mega farms that depend on machinery instead of people. Organic farming in particular is a more labor intensive process. For example, it takes more labor to remove weeds mechanically or by hand than it does to simply run a tractor through the field and indiscriminately spray a herbicide.

Also true is that industrial farming is amazingly efficient in producing large amounts of consistent, cheap food and the world is hungry. Industrial food suppliers, however, are not very efficient at getting all that cheap food to the hungry people of the world. Alleviating hunger in third world countries is an ongoing battle with no end in sight. In America, the war on hunger is being fought on many different fronts, but people still go hungry or don’t have access to enough healthy food to prevent disease. Cheap food is very often not healthy food. America’s inner cities have been called “food deserts” where the only food outlets available are convenience stores or fast food restaurants. For example, in Chicago over a half million people live without easy access to a grocery store

to be continued…

Liberty School Cabernet Sauvignon

This post is in honor of the letter “L” and part of Jenny Matlock’s Alphabet Thursday. For more liberating “L” posts, please click here http://jennymatlock.blogspot.com/

I picked this up on a trip to the coast this fall and just opened it last night. I really liked it even though typically I like a more full bodied cab. It has some soft edges that paired nicely with the tomato sauce and pasta I had with it, but has enough umpphhh to stand up to a steak. Nice, versatile wine to have around the house and very inexpensive….