June 26, 2013 Food Swap

Whoo hoo! What an exciting food swap we had on Wednesday June 26th, 2013!

3: 00 pm came and we had a friend show up and swapped fiji apples for apricots. Then shortly afterwards another friend came over with more Caigua seedlings. And I think he swapped a seedling for jam. 

Another friend came and brought Chocolate Almond Bites:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of raw almonds
• 1 cup of shredded unsweetened coconut
• 1 cup pitted dates
• 4 tbsp cacao powder 
• 1/2 cup freeze dried Goji Berries

Directions:

1. Mix all ingredients in a food processor or blender. 
2. Transfer to bowl.
3. Use coconut oil, almond milk to add a touch of moisture. 
4. Roll into balls. 

Alt Options:

Use other nuts instead of almond or mini white chocolate chips. 

As you can see she brought a plateful and well....

We stopped eating, so I could take a picture of the last one.

In between friends coming and going, another friend brought eggs from her hens, and (2) 1/2 doz eggs were well received. 

Lastly, another friend who came the furthest, about 1 hour and 30 mins away, brought us grape leaves, and diatomaceous earth (food grade), and enjoyed the afternoon with her 2 sons playing in my yard.

The afternoon turned to evening, and I thanked everyone for coming, and cleaned up my yard.

Again, thank you everyone for coming see you next week. 

June 19, 2013 Food Swap

After such an exciting week last week, I am very sorry to report that no one contacted me about attending, nor did anyone just show up.

Again it has been brought to my attention to have a swap on a weekend, and I'm not trying to come off as a know-it-all or be rude at all. I am saying that in the past I have done it on a Saturday morning... and no one showed up. No one contacted me about coming or not, and no one showed up. So I just sat in my front yard for the fun of it for 3 hours. No really it wasn't fun.

If someone would like to open up their front/back yard for a weekend swap I am ALL for it. I will come and bring some awesome herbs or fruit (my apricot tree is starting to ripen) and I will swap with other people, and have a grand ol'e time. I just want to keep the swaps at my home to Wednesday's from 3-6 pm. (3-5 pm in the winter).

Please leave a comment below or contact me directly if you want to host a swap at your home and we can talk about the details.

Thank you, :)

June 12, 2013 Food Swap

After the previous week of the people coming without letting me know, I decided to update my post on the Nextdoor website, to include please RSVP so I can set up for the event or cancel it. This got people's attention and I had 3 people RSVP. YEAH!

So the day of the event I put my sign out in the yard

and set up a table in the front yard, and went to collect herbs and fruit for the swap.

one neighbor shows up and bring home grown kale, two varieties. 

and another neighbor comes and brings Achojcha / Caigun, 

And another neighbor comes and bring homemade bread!

I am so excited, what I have envisioned for over a year has just come to life before my eyes. People are talking about their soil in their yards, and above ground gardening, and they are excited to come back again and see what everyone else might bring.

Even the kids are playing with the chalk and bubbles!

Before I know it everyone has swapped, and time to go home! Yeah!

Thank you, neighbors for coming you don't know how much it meant to me to see you come and be neighborly. 

Cooked Cabbage

I wanted to highlight the food I made from item(s) that I got from a swap. This is for cooked cabbage from the head of home grown cabbage from the swap on 6/5/13.

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup coconut oil
• 1/2 teaspoon seasoned salt
• 1 medium head cabbage, coarsely shredded
• 1/4 cup chopped onion or scallion
• 6 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• 1 tablespoon granulated sugar

Preparation: 

In a large skillet over medium heat, melt coconut oil; add seasoned salt, cabbage, and onion. Cook, covered, over medium heat for 15 minutes. Stir frequently. Blend vinegar and sugar; add to cabbage mixture. Stir gently to blend; cook cabbage 5 minutes longer.
Easy cabbage recipe serves 6.

June 5, 2012 Food Swap

Summer is almost here and I'm getting excited to do swaps again, I found out about a neighborhood website called Nextdoor and saw that my neighborhood was on there. I decided to post about OC Food Swap on the group board, and see what happens...

No one responded that they were coming. I also always post on the Facebook group page about swaps and on Craigslist as well. So the day of the swap happens, I check and no one has contact me on or offline about coming. So i stay home, but I don't do any set up in my front yard.

About 3:30 pm someone rings my door bell with a big sack of grapefruit asking if my home is the location of the food swap. I bring the person to my front yard and explain because no one contact me about coming or even RSVP'ing on the neighborhood website I didn't do a set up on my lawn. Talked a bit and made a swap of egg shells for grapefruits.

About 10 mins go by and he leaves. An hour later another doorbell ring and it's the same thing, is this the location of the food swap. Yes come into my front yard, how did you hear about the swap? Nextdoor website. I explained what a swap is and the importance of contacting me or RSVP'ing so I can set up my front yard for the swap. Gave the family some herbs, and received a head of cabbage. 

About 30 mins later the family left, and that was it for my visitors.

Update

In the Beginning

May of 2012: I want to eat more organic fruits and vegetables, but health food stores are so expensive. I know it is better to pay for the cost of health food now, instead of paying medical bills down the road. But being unemployed makes it very hard to buy organic with so little income to work with. I was basically kicking myself for not starting a garden sooner...

So I go online and look for garden groups/clubs I could join to get more info... then I think to myself, wouldn't it be neat if I could join a group where everyone were to share or barter their garden goods?

I used the power of the internet to look for a free garden barter group and stumbled upon Food Swap Network. Great what I was thinking existed! So I typed in my zip code, and had two responses to inquiry. Long Beach, CA and South Pasadena, CA. The Long Beach one did not have a swap event listed in the near future, but South Pasadena did.

I made the necessary arraignments to contact the group leader, and let them know I would be attending, and got the directs and so forth.

Step 1: Attending a Swap

June 4th, 2012: I woke up early to drive the 41 miles. Even on a Saturday I knew there would be traffic, most of the time to go to LA is over an hour, so to go to Pasadena, I knew I had a long drive ahead of me. My online map app sent me to another part of Pasadena, not where I wanted to be. Plus I also got stuck in two traffic jams. When I finally got there is was nearly an hour and half after it was supposed to start. I believe it was from 10 am to noon, and I there at 11:30 (even though I had left at 8 am) and did not leave until after 2pm. (I was not about to leave at noon after spending all morning driving there, and lucky the home owner let people stick around and chit chat eat lunch (pot luck style) and even let other people clean up their yard. So after using the restroom I left with my mind brimming with ideas.

Why couldn't I start a group in Orange County? Yes, Orange County is a large area, but people could open up their homes and use my group as a hub to give gardening tips, and talk about their swap. So just barely after I got home, I was already online creating a group - not a fan page, on Facebook. (For questions about why to start a group verses a fan page, do you own research). I already knew a few people in my area that had trees, and I knew they would want to join the group. And before I knew it I was up to 10 members.

Step 2: Getting people to attend

Now this has proven to be the most difficult of all. People think it's a great idea, but everyone's schedule is do different that I truly cannot compete with everyone, and plus I have to work around my schedule for the swaps that I host. Like I mentioned before Orange County is a lot of area to cover, and I'm not looking for people in North Orange County to drive to my house every week. So they come to my house once, see how it works, and then they start hosting swaps at their house, and involve their neighbors, post on my group and on the Food Swap Network and in the end we all win!

From doing direct sales for over 12 years I know one thing about being consistent. I would hold monthly Open Houses for my clients / customers to come over eat some food and see "What's New?". I would hold it the same day each month, first Wednesday evening of the month. I put out my emails, and made sure my newsletter mentioned it and then just waited for people to show. Some month's I would have 10 people show up and that would start my month off good, and other months, no one showed up. Later when I stopped doing the monthly Open House due to my schedule changing and did not want to confuse people by giving them a new Open House day I just opted to stop instead. For many months afterwards people would tell me that in their brains the first Wednesday of each month was my Open House and they knew it and they would make sure they would come or not. So I feel the same with the swaps I do personally at my home. Every Wednesday from 3-6 (or 3-5 during the winter months). I put the word out, and people know that if they are going to stop by or call me on Wednesday between 3-6 my front yard is where I'll be.

It has come up with perhaps doing a swap on a weekend, and let me tell you folks the weekends are hard. There is kid activities, and kid birthdays, and kid BBQ's, plus errands to be done by parents who work all week and don't have time for errands, or they didn't get everything done on the weekdays, then there is chores or yard work, home projects and DIY projects done on the weekend, people go out of town, visit family and a hundred other things on the weekend. I already have given up a few Saturdays for the swap, and people's lives trump my food swap. I'm not trying to sound sassy, but for the swaps at my home, I am giving up my time to be home and be there if anyone wants to come by and swap. If anyone else would like to have a swap in their front or backyard on a weekend, I will do what I can to support it by going.

I want the food swaps to be a lot like farmers markets, where it happens every week/month at the same time in about 10 or so locations in Orange County. People bring their garden and homemade goods set up on a table or blanket and swap barter goodies.