non-still life with cake

With two bottomless teen boys and one hard working husband, there is no end to the eating in this house. The delicious and filling homemade dinners I prepare are nothing but a prelude to the all-night eating fests that happen afterwards. Number two son is usually interested in baking something, so while at the local health food store, I picked up an organic chocolate cake mix. I'm not of the opinion that "organic" adds much redeeming nutritional value to chocolate cake, but I do try to think of the source of my food. And having turned cocoa beans with my own bare feet, in the hot sun, with a cocoa plantation worker in the heart of Grenada, I like to at least think I'm keeping someone, somewhere in the world, from having to turn pesticide-laden cocoa beans with her feet. Or keeping some farm worker from having to breath the dust of a pesticide-laden wheat field. Sometimes it's about healthfullness, sometimes it's about the source. This is how I make most of my decisions in the grocery store, and believe me, it takes awhile to work my way through the store and come out feeling ok about things. Thank God for the local farmer's market, which makes this task so much easier. (Come on Spring! Come on farmers!) Sometimes, frankly, it's about the price, but, as much as I am able, I try to not let that override other things. Toxic foods, toxic farmland, and animal suffering have their own invisible price tags. It makes me sad that for many people it must be about the price, and there is no other choice. Anyway, jumping down of my soapbox to continue my tale...We made the cake and iced it and we were quite proud of ourselves because by the looks of it, it was a grand success. We haven't eaten the cake yet. We didn't finish until 9pm, and by that time they'd ravaged most every other edible thing in the pantry and were temporarily satiated. We will have this hopefully delicious cake tonight, the first night of Spring Break week.

(An addendum to this blog post, just in case I come off as too...something...and in the interest of honesty. I have blogged about my addiction to Diet Coke. It is bad healthwise and pretty much everyotherwise. I have recently read that CocaCola company is polluting water in drought ridden areas of India, and that the villagers are experiencing extreme water shortages. This is something I wrestle with, while I continue to drink my daily or every-other-day diet coke. I'm not happy with this situation, yet I have not found anything that I enjoy in the way that I enjoy my fizzy d.c. as I sit in my hot, dark, cave-like office. So far, this is a sacrifice I have not been willing or able to make.)