From local turkeys to seasonal root crops, Thanksgiving gifts us with a list of seasonal opportunities to green the holiday. While these all rank tangible, important actions to take, let’s not miss the golden green opportunity rooted in the inherent concept of Thanksgiving: gratitude.
A mindset of green gratitude emphasizes positive abundance, relishing the glass half full perspective. An important concept to keep on the front burner, especially as tanking economies fuel table conversations that tend to serve up sentiments of fear, scarcity and deprivation.
Add a dash of green reflection and gratitude to your Thanksgiving table by throwing these three questions on eating and drinking better into the conversation mix:
1. What new local food did you discover this year?
Thanks to the burgeoning local food scene, it’s easy to continually discover new locally produced food options you may never have thought of before. For me, a favorite discovery was Sibby’s ice cream, Wisconsin-made and the first organic soft serve ice cream in the country.
2. What bad food habit did you give up or replace?
The corollary for finding new good food options is continually sifting out the bad ones, working towards healthier replacements or – if you can muster – giving them up entirely. Not necessarily the worst of habits, but I am trying to cut back on my coffee habit, even if they are Fair Trade, organic beans from Equal Exchange, savoring one morning cup and switching to green tea the rest of the day.
3. What’s your most memorable meal of 2008?
I know, this is a hard question to narrow down to one answer for us foodies, but the answers undoubtedly prompt some reflective discussion. Is it your favorite meal because of the food you ate – or people you shared it with – or both? My favorite meals tend to cluster around the summer potlucks we host on our farm, sharing and savoring the peak of summer flavor.
Photo credit: John Ivanko
Lisa Kivirist
Lisa Kivirist embodies the growing “ecopreneuring” movement: innovative entrepreneurs who successfully blend business with making the world a better place. Lisa is co-author, with her husband, John Ivanko, of Rural Renaissance: Renewing the Quest for the Good Life, capturing the American dream of farm living for contemporary times. Her latest release, ECOpreneuring: Putting Purpose and the Planet Before Profits is a compact, dynamic tool kit for a fresh approach to entrepreneurial thinking, blending passion for protecting and preserving the planet with small business pragmatics. As a W.K. Kellogg Food & Society Policy Fellow and Director of the Rural Women's Project, Lisa champions a voice for women farmers and rural ecopreneurs through media, speaking and advocacy work. Lisa runs the award-winning Inn Serendipity Bed and Breakfast in southwest Wisconsin, completely powered by renewable energy and considered amongst the “Top Ten Eco-Destinations in North America.” Her culinary focus on local and seasonal cuisine – with most ingredients traveling less than 100 feet from her organic gardens to B&B plates – earned recognition in publications from Vegetarian Times to Country Woman and inspired her cookbook, Edible Earth: Savoring the Good Life with Vegetarian Recipes from Inn Serendipity. In addition to feature writing for publications such as Hobby Farm Home, Mother Earth News and Wisconsin Trails, Lisa is the lead writer for Renewing the Countryside, a non-profit organization showcasing rural entrepreneurial and agricultural success stories. Lisa also penned Kiss Off Corporate America: A Young Professional’s Guide to Independence. Lisa shares her farm with her husband, their young son, a 10kw wind turbine and a colony of honeybees.
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