Going to the Farm and Rule #28

The Super Bowl was today and everyone knows that part of the tradition of this day is eating all the crappy food you can cram down your throat. What an experience it was to have to limit this free-for-all. Ryan was seriously about to die when the Costco chicken wings came out of the oven and he could not have one because there is no way that those former-chickens met the criteria of this week's food rule.

Luckily for Ryan we went to the farm yesterday morning and got some meat he could have. Despite being a little hung-over Saturday morning I was pretty ecstatic to check out this farm located a fairly short drive from our house. I woke up early in hopes that we would be one of the first customers there because I was concerned they would sell out of products. I also woke up singing (literally, yes, I was singing) "We're gggoooooooing to the farm!" over and over and over again (my poor boyfriend). We arrived at the farm's store that is open to the public six days per week and it was just how I pictured it from reading the online description. The door was unlocked, we walked in, and we were the only one's there. There was a fridge full of eggs, meat (lamb and goat), and goat milk. They appeared to be out of the goat cheese. There was a wall full of yarn from the sheep. Some blankets. They were out of honey, which was sad because we really wanted to buy some. They had goat milk soap and some other various products. We took what we wanted, calculated the total cost and left the money in the jar. They operate on the honor system, which I thought was pretty cool. From the little farm store we could view the sheep roaming freely, the goats playing near the barn, and the chickens pecking another area. All the animals looked happy and healthy.

When we got home I was excited to try out a recipe called Vietnamese Aromatic Lamb Chops. I started marinating the meat in soy sauce, garlic and spices. As the chops marinated in the fridge, I knew it was the one thing that Ryan and I would have to look forward to after watching everyone else at our friend's Super Bowl party chow down on all sorts of meat products from undisclosed locations.

This week's rule was challenging and made me realize how much meat I have been eating without really knowing anything about it (especially while shopping at Costco and being forced to have to pass up all sorts of samples involving meat products). Ryan reminded me that it's not just meat because really most all food that we eat we don't really know much about. Ignorance is bliss.

We have already started to anticipate this upcoming week's rule, Rule #28: If you have the space, buy a freezer. Ryan has been researching freezers the last few days. We are going to clear out space in our garage and we are excited to start going in on buying animals with our friends and family. This will help us be able to always know more about the quality of the meat we are choosing to eat. It also seems necessary because it will help cut costs and because it seems not many small farms sell regular grocery-sized portions of meat to the public. We are not guaranteeing we will be able to get a freezer in the next week but we are certainly going to try!

Here are pictures from our farm adventure: