Our Natural Food Store

Natural Foods in Manzanita

Until I moved to the coast with my mate, I never realized how spoiled I was with easy access to a plentiful variety of vegan and organic food ingredients. Our little town is fortunate to have Mother Nature's Natural Foods.
I need to explain a bit. To get to another natural food store or a store that carries enough organic and natural food I have to drive anywhere from 22 to 40 miles north up a winding coast highway that occasionally closes due to floods and slides. I haven't found anything to the south closer than that. It is 22 miles to Seaside which has a tiny health food store with some bulk items and no produce. There is a Safeway that carries some organic produce and a very limited selection of so called natural convenience foods. To get to a place with a greater selection of the foods I need, I drive the 40 miles to Astoria and shop at the Astoria Food Coop. There I get my organic bulk supplies, including tofu in bulk, spices, etc.. I usually pick up some produce too but fresh produce needs to be replenished frequently. I don't make the trip to Astoria more than once a month. During the off seasons of the Farmer's Market, I rely on Mother Nature's for my produce and a few additional items. 
To be fair, there are two other little grocery stores in town. The one across the street from Mother Nature's is the only other one we have shopped at. My mate is the one who shops there for the odd item for himself as much of the merchandise is for the seasonal visitors, but they do have a few bits of organic produce too. I have only been in the other one (the third store) once and do not shop there for several reasons which I will not go into here.
There is a Costco up the coast but we choose not to have a membership there as they do not carry much of anything we need and we like to shop local as much as possible.
Finally, we also use online shopping for items that are harder to find such as cacao nibs and vegan vitamin supplements.
As I have mentioned in other, these limitations actually have been a blessing. They have forced us to simplify and streamline our eating habits which have resulted in even healthier eating. Vegan convenience and junk food is plentiful in more populated areas. I have found we could do just fine without all that.
To be honest, sometimes when time is tight and I am tired, I wouldn't mind being able to pop in someplace for something fast and convenient! Thankfully, with a little bit of organization, I can be prepared for those times.

So, if you ever find yourself in our little town looking for natural foods and a few vegan and gluten-free supplies, Mother Nature's Natural Food Store is the way to go. 

One of the wonderful things about living in a small town is that you get to know your people. Here are a few from Mother Nature's:

Left to right: Jan (owner), Thomas, and Syd.

Not the best picture as the batteries were going out in my camera. Here is a view down our main street with the store in the shingled building on the left:

Main street in Manzanita The ocean waves look like a white bar at the very end

Ultimately I would like to be able to grow the bulk of our food needs myself. Given that our area is at the mercy of Mother Nature (the entity, not the food store!) being self sufficient is really the best solution.

That is a whole 'nother post.
Well, the rain has moved in and is pounding the windows. The ocean is roaring above the sound of the rain and dark has fallen. Time to wrap up this post and get a good night's sleep. 
-Renee

Herbal Skills Share

Our local Herbal Skills share group thinning Arnica

I am so happy to have found a local Herbal Skills Share group. Tuesday afternoon we all converged on one of Vivi's (our local herbalist of Tallwoman Tonics) herb plots to thin her Arnica plants. I have only lived on the Northern Oregon Coast for just over two years so I am still learning what grows here and what is available in our local growing region.
We were all a bit surprised at how interwoven the Arnica roots were. They made a thick mat in the soil and thinning was no easy task. We all tackled it as you can see in the above photo and it got done. We all took home Arnica plants for our gardens. My personal garden is all in pots as the house we rent has its own lovely landscaping. I will take some a picture of the plants and report on how well they are doing.
Vivi started us out with a talk on the properties and uses of Arnica. She always has several cross-references on hand in addition to her own knowledge so we get a good bit of information. Everyone chips in any additional knowledge as well. She did mention which variety she is growing which I neglected to write down but I found it on her blog! It is Arnica chamissonis.  At the moment she has a picture of the plant and flower on her current post.
I personally have used Arnica as a topical lotion or oil to heal bumps and bruises and blunt trauma injuries. Being an outdoorswoman I usually collect my fair share of these type of injuries, mostly minor. Arnica speeds healing and reduces inflammation and pain.
I have also taken it homeopathically for trauma injuries. My dearest friend is a Naturopathic doctor and I learned about using the simple homeopathic remedies from her. Please use professional guidance before treating yourself with anything you are not familiar with internally.

I am hoping I will be able to grow enough of the Arnica to make my own oil and tinctures for injury. This is a great one to have in your basic herbal first aid kit.

Vivi also let us take some Dyers Camomile plants that were straying out of bounds in her garden. I am thrilled with this one too as I plan to do some natural dyeing this summer over on the Artful Stitch blog. 
It is very important to me to learn these skills. I have an underlying sense of urgency to learn to be as self/community sufficient as possible. This may just be my own response to the turmoil in our country and world these days or perhaps something else. I really don't know. I have a decent set of skills at the moment but need to add a lot more.
On the food front, I still haven't started the rejuvelac but will do that now. I am sending the payment for our Spring CSA today so well have a steady supply of great spring veggies starting next month until the Farmers Market opens. The pantry and refrigerator got stocked up yesterday as we have a few spring storms on their way today. Off to paint in the studio now!

-Renee

Spring?

©2013 R.L. Delight, Neahkahnie Mist

As much as I would love to share a picture of the meal I am about to discuss, my food photography skills are not that great. Other's do a far better job so I won't attempt it but will post this one of where I live instead. I took this one while painting on the beach a few weeks ago.
It has been a bit of a stressful winter for me and my mate. These times come to all of us. While most of the time we eat very healthfully, occasionally a dose of comfort food is called for. Today was one of these occasions. I have been meaning to try out a new recipe I found for gluten free and vegan Tofu Popcorn Chick'n. The recipe is from a wonderful site I found called The Vedge. Shea's picture of her recipe is far nicer than one I could produce.
This was really easy to make. I pressed the tofu in my tofu press and broke it into chunks. I had to freeze it as I wasn't sure when I would be able to make the recipe. Since I already had the tofu prepared (after thawing)  it was a simple step to whisk up the rest of the ingredients and cook them up. I used Cajun spice seasoning to spice them up a bit and have to say, these were absolutely delicious. I made a batch of oven roasted garlic potato fries and a huge green salad served with a homemade lemon tahini dressing (recipe from the book Becoming Raw). Yum! A welcome break from beans.
The spring weather here on the coast has been cold and a bit stormy with sun breaks in between. We are starting to get spring break vacationers in our little town and there is Japan tsunami debris starting to wash ashore up and down the coast. I am waiting for the weather to settle just a tad before heading out to paint again. While I don't mind getting caught in occasional squalls and hail storms, deliberately heading out into the teeth of a series of hail storms is another thing altogether.
Walking the dog has become interesting too. We have had to run a few times to get undercover.
Go check out The Vedge. Shae has put together a wonderful site complete with great recipes and information for us gluten free vegans!
-Renee

Spring Greens!!!

The root contribution in our CSA box. Fire Cider Vinegar and Sea Sprinkles from Tallwoman Tonics.

Hello again! I am excited because today I was able to pick up a special CSA box of spring greens. There will be a feast tonight!

There are a lot of hidden and not-so-hidden gems on this part of the coast. My mate and I have enjoyed the community and the variety of skills that people bring to this area. I believe this is the key to surviving and thriving on the coast.
I had the pleasure recently of attending a local Herbal Skills Share group. I have long had an interest in herbs, wildcrafting, and natural dyeing. I had a strong feeling that I needed to get back to that practice and immediately found the Herbal Skills Share group. We spent the meeting talking about coltsfoot and enjoyed a cup of nettle tea and a sampling of coltsfoot tea. I have a new plant to add to my knowledge-base now, and a couple of new people.
Yesterday I had the pleasure of visiting with Vivi of Tallwoman Tonics. Our local herbalist. We discussed the wonderful internet potential of sharing herbal lore and I was treated to a cup of homegrown Tulsi tea while sitting in front of a large window overlooking one of the beautifully stunning views our area has to offer.
I am putting a link to Vivi's blog on the local resources list on my side-bar. She is excited about the blogging potential. I am looking forward to seeing what she adds to it.
Tonight we will be having left over homemade pizza, vegan and gluten free, a huge salad of fresh spring greens, and a quick saute of kale and beet greens with red onion and seasoned with Tallwoman Tonics Fire Cider Vinegar. Yum!!!
Yours in veggies, -Renee

Starving for Veggies

Let's try this again. As anyone reading this blog can tell, I have had a challenging time finding a good focus for this blog. There are so very many excellent vegan blogs out there to read and I have neither the time nor interest to compete with them so I will stay focused on my little niche of being vegan on the Northern Oregon Coast.
To add to the challenge of being vegan, I have also gone gluten free for over a year now. Going vegan was easy for me, going gluten free has been...painful and unfortunately necessary. I love my bread and I have had to kiss good bye any of the quick and easy vegan meat substitutes. I didn't eat many of them but it was nice having a quick and tasty meal available for those days when cooking time was short.
I have given up on the restaurants around here. They are not plentiful to begin with and the only two that had vegan and gluten free options made me ill. Food poisoning. My guess is the lack of demand for vegan and gluten free menu items may have led to less than fresh ingredients and cross contamination with animal products.
So, having accepted that, I have embarked on making my own in spite of a very, very busy life. Thankfully this book came out and I purchased it as soon as it did:

I made my own rejuvelac from quinoa and made my first cheese, a chevre from cashews. It was a success! I made another batch of rejuvelac to make another cheese but I let it ferment too long so I will have to start over. I would like to try one from millet.
The only drawback to making my own is the time. You have to sprout the grains, ferment them, and then ferment the cheese. It doesn't take a lot of effort, just time. I will start another batch and report.
I also have this book:

Sourdough bread has always been my favorite, a nice rich whole grain organic sourdough bread. I miss it the most. I made one loaf that was heavenly a while ago. I used kefir (water kefir) as specified in the book. However, I don't like kefir, it is too sweet for me and my grains languished because I didn't use it up fast enough. I thought I would try the rejuvelac instead of kefir. I don't need to purchase special grains for rejuvelac. This will be another report.
So, here we are in winter, soon to be spring. Those of you who live in more populated areas have no idea how hard it can be to find good winter veggies in small isolated communities. I am hoping one day to have enough space and land to grow all my own veggies. In the mean time, my greens and veggie eating gets cut back further than I would like. I will have to try sprouts but a salad made solely of sprouts is not appealing to me.
Here is what we eat at the moment: A lot of beans and grains, some tofu, root vegetables (mostly potatoes), basic fruit, and whatever greens I can get ahold of. I would like to triple the amount we get at the moment. I also make flat bread from chickpea flour and spices. It is OK for now.
I will sign up for the spring CSA session. Last year we signed up for all four seasons. I found there was too much waste on my part. There seemed to be an over abundance of veggies I really don't like (very few, but still) and not enough of those I do like. I still have squash sitting around. I like squash in moderation but not out the wazoo.
That is my progress report from now. I will be posting about the cheese and bread making as well as other vegan, gluten free, plastic free, environmental things as they come up. Promise!
-Renee

CSA is Back!



©2012, R.L. Delight, The Beginning, 6"x6" oil on panel. http://www.rldelight.com.

It has been a long winter and I am hungry for greens. Thankfully our CSA (Community Supported Agriculture)  will be starting up again on Saturday! This wild coastal area continues to shape the way I eat. During the winter abundant vegetables are hard to come by and expensive. A lot of vegan goodies that are available in the cities are not available here. In fact, we find ourselves ordering hard to find food and sundries online. Eventually, I hope to be able to grow much of my own vegetables.
Overall, I feel the process has been a good one for me. My diet has been simplified to very basic and nutritious food. As for eating out at restaurants, I have yet to find anything that is equal or better to what I can make at home. Finding vegan, and now gluten free, continues to be a challenge.
Time to cook can also be a challenge! In addition to vegan and gluten free, I strive to eat a high raw diet. I live in a very cold and damp climate and find it challenging to stay warm on a 100% raw diet. I find it easier to eat mostly raw. I am a busy artist and find the extra planning and organizing to eat nutritiously a challenge. With that in mind I decided to set aside some time to organize a series of menus and shopping lists. I am planning to publish some of that here on this blog which has not been very active to this point. Hopefully others will find the information useful. It will be an interesting adventure to develop the menus and will help me out time-wise.
If anyone has any thoughts on that topic, please do leave a comment. I would love to hear ideas and requests at this point.
More to come soon! -Renee

Beginning Anew

Hello, it has been quite a while. I had to do a bit of re-thinking on where I wanted this blog to go. There are so many wonderful Vegan blogs out there dealing with delicious food and many of the issues as well. I knew I would not have the time and interest to compete with all the great information they provide. I want this blog to be more about a vegan lifestyle on the Northern Oregon Coast.
There is not a lot of resources here for a vegan, nor a lot of vegans here. After living here for over a year, I am just now starting to meet a vegan or two. We are planning to get together for mutual support and community.
My quest to find vegan and vegan friendly restaurants has not been exactly successful. The establishments that do serve vegan options offer up the usual fare of bean burritos, veggie burger (if you are lucky to find a vegan one), and hummus platters, are few and far between. Perhaps we can change that eventually.
Fortunately, during the growing season, I have access to plenty of beautiful, fresh, and locally grown food. We joined a CSA (community supported agriculture) farm and received weekly boxes of veggies and a bit of fruit, all grown here on the Oregon coast. The picture above is of the final box of the season. We ate well this summer. Alas, the local growing season has ended and now I am hard pressed to find a variety of good vegetables. Eventually I plan to grow my own but, until then, I need to find a good source.
It has been a good year. We have plugged into this small beach community and have grown to love it. The natural beauty and wild weather complete the picture. We have decided to settle here in spite of the challenges and are now doing our best to find a way to make a living. I am working on my art career and will have more to post about that later.
I have more to post on life here and have a lot more to look forward to writing about. I will let this blog grow organically so patience may be needed. I will post again in a week, give or take a day or so. Until then, -Renee