Slow Living Essentials - February 2014

la moraine d'Argentiere - cross country ski track
March 1st - St Davids Day

February has been a snowy month.  In general it always is but this year even more so.  By mid month I was getting seriously fed up of the stuff and the constant heavy snow filled skies that accompanied it.  But this last week or so, to the delight of the tourists and locals alike, the weather has been playing ball - heavy snow fall in the night and blue skies and sunshine in the day time.  Now thats better!!
So it with lifted spirits that I'm joining in with Christine for Slow Living Essentials Monthly 9 Link up.

{NOURISH}
We've pretty much depleted everything from the garden (with the exception of jams and chutneys) so I've been turning to store bough to make this fantastic Butternut Squash Casserole, featured the last issue of Taproot magazine.  It's so adaptable - this particular time I added some left over spinach.

I also tried my hand at gluten free bread with a store bough mix that was so foul even the fowl wouldn't touch it!

yucky!!

We have a great organic supermarket down the valley which stocks a varied array of products but it has a very limited choice of flours. Thus i'm having difficulty getting my hands on the raw ingredients to make my own homemade gluten free bread.  The solution, you might be thinking, is the internet, but here's the problem with that...

{ENHANCE}
... heavy goods traffic!  It's polluting our pure alpine air.  And it's only by choosing what we buy that we can ever hope to have some control over this flow of traffic.  The Mont Blanc Tunnel goes from Chamonix, France to Courmayer in Italy, and, as it's name implies, passes under, the Mont Blanc mountain range (you need crampons and ice-axes to go over it!).  It's mighty handy for popping over the border for a cup of very fine tasting coffee, but also for criss-crossing Europe with strawberries grown in southern spain and enjoyed in the alps at the height of winter!!!
While I'm up here on my soap box let me give you another example of utter stupidity - potatoes that are grown in Belgium are brought to France to be peeled and cut into french fries before returning 'home ' to be consumed!!  So, the hidden cost of buying things on-line for me is that I increase this already saturated traffic problem.
A protest march was organized at the beginning of the month to draw public attention to the problem, and I proudly carried a banner along side my father-in-law, my son's school teacher and about a 1000 concerned others.  The local Mayer is actively engaged in the combat as are most of the Doctors from the entire region, and many alternatives to decrease the heavy goods traffic have been proposed, so fingers crossed that the powers that be are listening.  If they are not we may have to get LOUD!

{CREATE}
For this last month I've been busy with a Mystery KAL, while the boys have been playing with paper and wood

{PREPARE}
Despite recently buying a freezer with the intention of grocery shopping only every two weeks I'm sill only managing 7-10 days without a trip to the shops.
Still don't have the sense to prepare double helpings of meals to freeze either!  I really need to work on this one as in the long run it will save me time in the kitchen.

{REDUCE}
Organic or Local? - that is the question.  Local organic is the solution but unfortunately, rarely an option. With the need to reduce the goods traffic in the valley I've been buying local (ish).  The red flag with white cross means that the produce is from the Savoie region - we are in the Haute Savoie.  It's most definitely not a guarantee of organic goods but is often promoted as 'reasonable agriculture' - meaning as little pesticide as possible has been used.

{GREEN}
Finally converted Richard to home made deodorant!!   After putting it to the cross-county ski-ing sweaty test he reported back that it 'really does work'!!

{GROW}
Managed to keep two basil plants alive all winter (so far), they are still producing leaves but they don't have much of a smell.  Didn't have the same success with a  Grow Your Own Bonsai Tree Kit -  couldn't get a single seed to sprout?

{DISCOVER}
A few changes at the Chamonix Ladies Book Club - from this month on, not only will we be exchanging books but collectively reading the same book.  The chosen novel for march is Animal Farm.  I'm not a fan of dystopian tales but I think I will give it a go all the same.

{ENJOY}
Celebrated my birthday at a local hotel with Richard and the boys.  Tino visited the desert buffet more times than was healthy before wiping his chocolaty chops in the table cloth!!!

birthday gifts from my loved ones - Thank you all.

Richard's planning this winter has afforded him much more time with the family, so we've enjoyed lunch dates, ski outings and my firm favorite - sunday morning pancakes.

even more tasty when hubby makes them!

March 1st - St Davids Day - ski-ing at Les Choselets

sunny afternoons

How was your month?