Tipping Point

You know the concept where an idea (really, an epidemic), gains critical mass? Reaches a point where vast acceptance (or infection) happens at a rapid rate? I've had my own personal tipping point with cloth diapers.

I'm environmentally conscious, but when I researched cloth diapers for my first-born, there was something too cumbersome about the process: the folding and the clipping and the diaper cover and the muck was too much to bring down a fence sitter. I told myself I'd revisit the idea when it made sense. That didn't happen until the second child was almost a year old.

Enter Fuzzi Bunz, a cloth diaper almost as easy as disposables, every bit as effective, and frankly - because it matters - much, much cuter. It's a colorful, snappy, self-contained device that you throw in a hot water wash every few days. What Fuzzi Bunz has is *ease*.

How does this correlate with eating locally?

We started this blog because we both believe deeply in the local food movement. But despite it having several years momentum, despite all the information readily available online, despite a growing number of locavores, the process of eating locally is still a bit of a puzzle. Like Sunday, New York Times crossword puzzle.

Cooking is a passion for both of us, but we are busy moms with small children. Admittedly we haven't found the ease in the process. If it's not there for us, how do we convince other busy families to give up one stop grocery shopping and convenience food in exchange for a cobbled network of raw materials? What makes people give up prewashed salad (e. coli?) in exchange for whatever green happens to be ripe in the fields that week, oh, and it's been raining, so it's caked in mud and requires multiple rinses before you can even start to prepare it? Or a loaf of bread for a pile of grains? Canned beans for dried? A carton of ready-to-pour stock for scraps of bones? (See previous post re: FLAVOR) Essentially, how do you simplify a process and package the concept - NOT THE FOOD - in colorful *ease*?

This blog is our process of discovering just that. We believe there is a way to make cooking local foods an enticing, integral part of daily life for everyone. A small percentage of people eating locally is a great start, but we need to reach the tipping point to have real, global impact. So we're here to discover the ease for ourselves and share these findings along the way. We aren't setting out to be the tipping point, but we would like to infect our share of people along the way.