I just watched 'The Yes Men Fix the World' which was a great ending to my day.  I don't mean to blow the ending for you or anything but they don't actually fix the world and to be honest even though I think that they're awesome I still felt a little bit depressed afterwards.
I felt a little bit depressed after reading this book too.  In fact, sometimes the whole state of the western world makes me feel suicidally depressed.  I think about these things a lot.  I'm wondering where all the hippies have gone.  The seventies was an amazing time for new ideas and freedom (of speech not necessarily capitalism although it got in there too) and then the eighties happened.  Are we still protesting?  Are we still involved politically?  Did we just get jobs and move to the burbs?  Shouldn't we be more pissed off?
I had a conversation with a friend recently in which he told me that he knew I was high because we were talking about world government, free trade and the environment.  Here's the clincher though.  I wasn't high.  Damn.  Is that the only time people talk about this stuff?  I actually talk about it... a lot.  I think about it... a lot.  I wonder if things are just going to come crashing down around us... and then I wonder if it might not be a bad thing after all.  I wonder how long the gravy train in the west can continue and how long we can keep our heads in the sand.  I feel sad for my kids and for their kids and I'm not even sure what kind of world they are going to have.
Doomsday crap aside.  I went to my friends C and B a couple of days ago.  They've got this rad place in the middle of nowhere.  They've got dogs and cats.  They've got space for a small orchard and a huge garden.  They've got mondo solar panels set up outside the house.  Wild strawberries, elderberries, blackberries, gooseberries.  Damn.  That's only the beginning.  They work not only in their community to effect change but on a larger scale too.  They believe that thinking  and living environmentally can be financially viable if not as lucrative as we have been accustomed to the bottom line being up to now (well at least up to 2008).  It was good to talk to them about feeling depressed because they were able to pull me up and remind me that even if we can't change the world today we can do something.  Lots and lots of people are doing 'somethings'.


We went to pick strawberries.  We took kid #1 and #2.  Kid #1 filled a basket on her own.  We went back to their place and made jam.  We canned.  It felt good.  Then I came home and canned some more.  I made strawberry rhubarb jam with rhubarb from my backyard.
I wish that I could fix the world.  I wish more than anything that I could clean up the Gulf, that I could put water back in the Yellow and Yangtze river, that I could refreeze the poles and keep Polar Bears on this planet.  Hell, I wish that I could keep all the bike lanes that we presently have in Toronto here for good.  I wish that public transit was viable... for everyone and that our roads weren't clogged with frustrated, angry drivers.  I wish that I could keep the people who need it in public housing and see their lives be better because of it.  I can't do any of those things though.  So... I picked some strawberries while they were still in season.  I mashed and froze some.  I made a boat load of jam and put it on my shelf for the winter.  I made ice cream.



Strawberry Ice Cream - generously adapted from Dave Lebovitz
makes about 1 litre

1 cup milk (I use 4%)
2 cups heavy cream
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise and the beans scraped out
dash of salt
3/4 cups sugar
5 egg yolks, beaten together

2 cups mashed strawberries (make sure they've been mashed first and then measured)
1/2 cup sugar (make it a generous one)

Combine the mashed strawberries and 1/2 cup of sugar together in a bowl and refrigerate.
Combine the milk, cream ,vanilla bean, salt and sugar in a heavy bottomed saucepan.  Heat until the mixture is just beginning to simmer and then turn the heat down quite low.  Temper the egg yolks by adding a little of the warm milk mixture to the yolks and mixing.  Add a little more and then pour the whole thing into the milk/cream mixture.  Heat until it reaches 170 degrees F or use the trusty back of the spoon method (using a wooden spoon, dip it into the milk/cream mixture.  When it comes out if you can run your finger through the back of the spoon and the liquid doesn't run back together then it's ready).
Remove from the heat.
Sieve into a bowl.  Cover with plastic wrap (or clingfilm... whatever).  Put the plastic right onto the liquid so that it doesn't form a thick skin on top.  Refrigerate until it's well cooled (at least 3 hrs but overnight is best)
Add the mixture to the ice cream maker (or whatever you choose to make the ice cream) and DO IT.
Once the ice cream is ready, pour it into a large bowl.  Combine with the mashed strawberries.
Put all of it into freezer containers.  Freeze until you want it.
Thaw for about 15 minutes before serving.

Dudes... this is growing in my yard... in a couple of weeks I'll have a nice little harvest... can't wait.