23 months. That’s how long it’s been since my last A Very Foodly Diary blog post.
In this time, a few aspects of this site have changed:
- The site theme has been updated in an attempt to make it more readily navigable. Have I succeeded? Let me know what you think.
- Ebook seller Tomely has gone AWOL [anyone know what happened there?], so I have pointed my foodly ebook links to Amazon for reliability.
- I am clearing out dead/irrelevant links. With nearly 250 posts published here, this may take some weeks to complete, so bear with me.
- I am getting to the comments that got lost in the spam during this time [to those commenters — I beg your forgiveness].
This much has stayed the same: I love writing, and I love food.
I look forward to sharing my latest olive oil journey with you next month. As well as aiming to give us oil enough for a year (and to share!), this was an exercise in reducing local food waste.
Picking and pressing our olives made me think of other food sharing-related sites and movements — and here are just four I have connected with in Perth in recent times:
- RipeNearMe. Don’t be put off by the fact this is a Beta site: RipeNearMe a terrific concept — uniting foodies with growers. This is an Australian initiative founded by Adelaide residents, Alistair and Helena Martin, in 2012, and I am certain there are other groups like it worldwide.
- Pick your own. Many growers around Perth (and the world!) offer the chance to pick your own, at the fraction of supermarket prices. If you’re in Perth, you may recall the semi-recent news coverage of a WA orchardist opening their orchard to visitor-pickers because price pressure from big supermarkets made it unviable for them to pick the fruit from their trees. So by picking from local growers direct, you may just be doing them and yourself a favour — plus it’s a great day out.
- Community gardens. I’m a honorary member of one community garden, and a paying member of another that is closer to home. These gardens enable you to learn from experience and experts for low/no cost, and to share in the rewards from a good harvest. Find one near you and I promise benefits for your soul as well as your own garden.
- Buy Nothing. This impressive network of Facebook groups started as the brainchild of Rebecca Rockefeller and Leisl Clark in 2013. From Washington, Buy Nothing has grown to become a global movement. In addition to the plethora of non-food items, neighbours in my local group generously offer spare produce and meals, bakery bread, an extra batch of muffins as a treat for a busy family. When I put the call-out to my local group for any olives going to waste, members of my local community came forward with trees enough for me to exceed my 300kg goal [more on that next month].
There are so many related movements and organisations I could have mentioned — like The Welcome Dinner Project, Slow Food, Foodbank, SecondBite, ugly food, foraging, skipping — all of which show that food sharing is about so much more than a free meal.
Partaking in the toil for our food, and giving and receiving gratefully, brings families, friends, and strangers together. And in these little acts, we build community.
What do you think? Do you have a food sharing experience you’d like to add?
H 🙂
A Very Foodly Diary 