It’s about a week from Thanksgiving and despite being a vegetarian, one of the first things that comes to mind when I think about preparing for the holiday is–the turkey. My carnivorous family is driving all the way from western NY to spend Thanksgiving with us and I’m planning on fulfilling all of their Thanksgiving dinner dreams- including placing a dead bird on my new dining room table and slicing up pieces of his or her body for everyone’s enjoyment. Okay, okay… I’ll stop sounding like Rory Freedman or Kim Barnouin (authors of Skinny Bitch) and admit that the thought of roasting a bird isn’t at all offensive or obscene in my mind. In fact, it’s what rings true to my 22 years of Thanksgiving traditions.
So, I’ll stand for personally cooking and serving meat to my family to celebrate our founder’s historic pilgrimage to the new world and the blessings our country has received thereafter. What I won’t stand for is complying with modern society and making a meal out of the cheapest, fastest, and most convenient foods available. This means choosing to buy local and organic produce for my table, avoiding recipes that use processed foods, and of course- buying a guilt-free bird.
After realizing that I needed to find a turkey for my family, I used a few websites to do so:
http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/farm_locator.
The Local Harvest site eventually led me to find this farm:
http://lifeisgoodfarm.com/Life_Is_Good_Farm_Home_Page.php.
Life is Good Farm is located about 25 minutes outside of Savannah (local) and is dedicated to cage-free farming and feeding their animals by letting them roam about in their own natural environment. Any supplemental feed they use is 100% natural as well. Not only does Life is Good Farm line up with my beliefs about producing and consuming food in environmentally friendly ways, they also are an organization dedicated to helping their community. They give away free food and donate to several ministries and organizations.
Besides the assurance that I’m buying a bird from an environmentally sound organization, I was also thankful for the pleasant interaction I received when contacting the farm to request a bird. The owner of the farm answered my call, she was friendly and pleasant to talk to, thanked me for my support and interest in wholesome farming and followed up with a confirming email within 20 minutes. Yesterday she sent a follow-up email again confirming my purchase as well as sending a link with roasting instructions… http://www.localharvest.org/features/heritage-turkey-recipes.jsp
Is that the kind of interaction you receive when you place your frozen, plastic wrapped bird on your cashier’s check out line at your local supermarket?
I’ll be following up with another blog or two on our family trip to the farm. The bird is also promised to be as fresh as possible which means that it will be killed this coming Sunday, a mere 4 days before consumption. Knowing how fresh, wholesome, beneficial and great tasting the bird on my Thanksgiving table will be almost makes my mouth water… almost.
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