Tavola Enchantée

Slowing Down the Time: Festivals, Families and Slow Food

Our family is struggling. Ideally we would be living on several beautiful acres, growing 100% of our own food. We would be as sustainable as we could be. . . off-grid, solar, natural strawbale home, chickens, goats, honeybees, fruit trees, compost, homemade breads, yogurt, cheese. We even looked into composting toilets. We've daydreamed house plans and garden plans.
Here we are suburban Sacramento. It's not that bad. It really isn't that far from our dreams. We have six backyard chickens and a duck. We have honeybees, or rather HAD honeybees. They died 2 years in a row from "Colony Collapse Disorder". We have 22 fruit trees. We have a garden. I make breads and preserve fruits and make yogurt. So many of these things fail so often for us I think its almost a saving grace that we are here. If we had to depend on last summer's harvest we would have starved. Or maybe (says the daydreamer within) we wouldn't have left room for failure.
We also have a wonderful school close by for our children. I think I might go crazy homeschooling our 3 children. Perhaps my sanity depends on not having to wake up at 5am to milk the goat, collect eggs, make breakfast and then teach our kids arithmetic. I wake up at 7am, out the door at 8, drop Eve off at school and go home and do laundry (with my nice washer and dryer), have some lunch with my son, pick Eve up, etc..
The little part inside says, "you would enjoy a tighter routine, that goats teat would depend on you and the days would just linger forever ". Now that's something I'm interested in, making time slow.
We have done a lot to try to accomplish this already. We have followed Jerry Mander's advice and eliminated our television. We are fond of slow food. We try to celebrate the passing of seasons, but whoa is time flying or what? Maybe it's an inevible part of being a parent. I want my baby to stay a newborn, no to stay 3 months old, but as soon as I see something new in her she just begins to grow right there in my arms. By the time I finish this sentence I swear she will have grown half an inch.

Here is what I propose instead of chasing a dream of a sustainable family our family can be as sustainable as we can be here while eliminating some of the guilt by teaching and sharing what we do with others in a most enjoyable way!

Tavola Enchantée (www.tavolaenchantee.com) is a roving slow food dinner party. 100% organic and local, including our own produce, herbs, eggs and honey. We design a fabulous dinner party, provide artists, musicians, and a small lesson on organic local living. This is way for me to reach out to the community, express my design and culinary arts, and slow down.

"Slow down? With parties?", you say. Yes!
I think that enjoying the company of others and just creating beautiful things helps create solid, joyful memories. The memories are what makes a Summer day just linger forever.
More next time! Good night, I have to wake up early and make breakfast for the little ones.