Sunday Song Day: South Onondaga's General Store Before-and-Afters, Your Kind Kitchen's First Tasting, + "Live & Die" & "Holding Back the Years

We’ve been a whirl of work over here preparing for Your Kind Kitchen’s first tasting (<—cooking and also prepping the old General Store for both eating and COVID-spacing), while simultaneously wading through our first week of homeschooling; so this intro will be short so we can go roam around Rand and shake off the tension of days well worn and worked. <3

Continue for: South Onondaga’s General Store Before & After; Your Kind Kitchen’s First Tasting & Celebration; what homeschooling an art enthusiast looks like; plus a family thriving via the only planetary sustainable diet: plant-based. (<— Also happens to be the only diet known to prevent/reverse our world-leading cause of death: cardiovascular disease).

Live Kindly, Feast Kindly, Grow Forward.

Crystal (on the stairs) helping us move in to our first home in 2017.

As we were doing some final cleaning on Sat morning, Crystal grabbed one of the many mix-CDs to play on the ancient (<—from my childhood) boombox that bangs about the General Store, and she inadvertently sealed the theme song of the week: The Avett Brother’s “Live & Die”

All it'll take is just one moment and

You can say goodbye to how we had it planned

Ian and I stumbled into this property in 2017, and it was not at all planned. (All of the below happened in a little over 2 months.)

Our son tested with high lead levels at his 2 year check-up, we learned our rental had lead and we’d need to get out for the lead abatement, we realized we couldn’t afford Syracuse rent and a mortgage would be cheaper, we knew we wanted to stay in South O and this place (across the street from Ian’s parents house and childhood home) was the only house for sale at the time, and it had been sitting for over a year….because there are 4 buildings to upkeep (<—insert all of the swirly emoji faces you can imagine), it needed a new roof, it was a daunting forever-project, and the original South Onondaga General Store has the property oddly zoned.

My mother and grandmother had just recently died, my father found himself unexpectedly (sadly) with additional funds, and he helped us with a down payment we never would have had ourselves.

From the start this entire property has been more than we ever imagined or needed; and our hope for the General Store was to rehabilitate it into something useful. When our parents turned it down as a home for themselves :-), we began thinking it’d be a great Community Center.

General Store Now

The outside has been been a beautiful transformation, but the inside has involved the bulk of the work.

Ian and what it looked like when we started fixing it up in 2017. Friends and family have been a big help in sprucing this place up through the years. <3

All set up for Saturday’s tasting

Our hope is that in the years to come we can get this place to code (<—there is no heating or plumbing), tuck a kitchen in the back, and keep the main room open for multi-use options: movies, farmer’s markets, art shows, open mics, sustainability/nutrition lectures, for people to rent out (<—with just a maintenance fee) for use of their own parties, etc.

Princess Bride a few years back. <3

In the mean time, the open-air/rustic General Store is good for a gentle roll-out of Your Kind Kitchen’s plant-based feasting and celebrating officially becoming a business with one of your bestfriends.

Out-takes Are Always My Favorite / When you're officially a business owner with one of your favorite souls (<--your shared dream is to help feed people as kindly/cheaply/healthfully as possible in an effort to pushback on climate change), you're about to embark on your first tasting, and you're both so happy you can't make it through the needed-for-the-website photos without laughing.

The whole thing went off as dreamed (including all the dishes clean/away!), and tomorrow will be a fun swell of before-and-afters in that beacon of a General Store.

Live kindly, feast kindly, grow forward.

As said above, when “Live & Die” started playing I was snapped to thought on the tangentials. Crystal and I met in February 2013 and we were friends from the start.

One of the things I love most about Crystal is how she manages to be absolutely unflappable yet is always growing forward. Our lives have changed considerably in the last 7 years, and yet she’s always pivoting to make the best out of each shift.

All it'll take is just one moment and
You can say goodbye to how we had it planned
Fear like a habit, run like a rabbit, out and away
Through the screen door to the unknown

'Cause I wanna save you and more
I wanna tempt you and more
Can you tell that I am alive?
Let me prove it

You and I, we're the same
Live and die, we're the same
You rejoice, I complain
But you and I, we're the same
Live and die, we're the same
You and I, we're the same
Hear my voice, know my name
You and I
You and I

I’m not here to simply tell you I love you and how to eat healthfully. I mean the first and I dearly want the second; but the “more” I want is for us to recognize that we are connected to everything around us and if y’all keep eating the Standard American Way you will feast yourselves (and the rest of us) to environmental doom while filling yourselves with disease.

You and I are the same.

I’ve long documented my past Meat-Munching/Dairy-Delighting/Junkfood-Feasting Hobbit past; and Crystal was right along with me.

We ran a cooking group together where we taught developmentally disabled adults how to prepare homecooked meals, and it was full of organic/antibiotic free meats and cheeses because that’s what we thought was great for us and we LOVED it… and then we started learning how those foods were terrible for the earth, our bodies, and the animals needlessly raised to feed us disease.

We likely “loved” those foods more-than or as-much as you, yet we grew forward.

To our surprise and delight, that dietary shift propelled us into the best health of our lives and radiated out to the loved ones who made the same switch… all the while lowering our environmental footprint and eating compassionately.

That example (and a lot of klaxon howling) swayed a swell of souls to reach out and say that they would love to eat/do better but can’t, and could-we-please just cook it for them; so we’re taking our love of cooking/eating/the earth ( plus our years-tested delight in cooking/working together), and are creating a zero-waste/plant-based meal delivery service.

We fed 15 people on Saturday, it went off as we dreamed (although I need to take a page out of Crystal’s unflappable example!), and the only garbage was one slight piece of wrap that had covered the gargantuan Shepherd’s Pie! <3

Tastings in the time of COVID: everyone had a 8x8ft cube, the main doors were open for cross-ventilation, and masks were worn when not at tables.

Zero-Waste / Low-Fuss / Not-Very-Professional-But-We-Don't-Care menus made out of leftover cardstock from Cappello cards.

Ian had the idea to give the guests pens to collect feedback.♥️

Lentil Loaf Tostadas with cashew queso, quick-pickled cabbage, balsamic dressed greens, and ten-minute tomatillo.

Broccoli "Cheese" Soup made with Crystal's amazing Plant-Based Whole-Food cheese sauce & Shepherd's Pie (<--made with Impossible meat.)

"Stuffed Pepper Casserole" - black rice; seared/pureed poblano peppers with onion and garlic; some of Crystal's PBWF cheese sauce; topped with a hemp-heart "parm"and shaved brazil nut; served with homemade marinara.

Black Rice, Peanut Sauce, and Stone's Throw Farm Mizuna dressed with Sesame Dressing.

Folks stretching their legs and stomachs before dessert. :-)

Wish I'd gotten a better picture of the desserts, and that I'd remembered to put the berry sauce on those brownies as the menu stated! 🤦‍♀️🙌

Black Bean Brownies with Chocolate Sauce, Sweet Potato Flatbreads, Fig Newton Cake, Sweet Cashew Cream.

I sing his praises daily, but this week Ian gets a rhapsodic send-up. He decided the back wall didn’t look presentable enough for the tasting, so he spent the week putting up some boards after long days of work.

And after all that work, he didn’t sit down and enjoy the feast: he delivered all the plates for us. <3

And Crystal’s amazing kiddos get a send-up for not only helping us clean out the store: they helped us ( along with Tara) clean and put away all the dishes! <3

And this sweet cub, GOOD GRAVY. This is the only pic I have of him through the day because I was a bit preoccupied, but not only was he his sweet, energetic (that scratch on his cheek is from rolling around in the tall-grass), and well-behaved self: he also somehow managed to eat on his lap (so others had tables) for the duration of this feasting and still come away with a white shirt!

Celebratory leftovers: when everyone is gone, your dishes are done (and the last bits are drying), and you’re thrilled you can make yourself a whole plate of tostadas with the leftovers. <3

And on the back-end of the above was the first week’s roll-out of homeschooling Q.

Like owning a home, becoming plant-based, and starting a business,this is not something we imagined on our path, and yet here we are.


Another thing I never imagined: that the lite-rock crooning “Holding Back the Years” would become a song my son would want to listen to on repeat through a week of work and drawing.

Last weekend we’d been hugging, he asked me to “never let go, ever!”, I had jokingly started singing, ““I’llllll keeeeeep holding onnnnnn!”, and he pleaded with me to look up the song so he could hear it in full.

I thought one time would suffice, but this was requested a LOT this week and was accompanied by his tiny little voice singing along as he worked on drawings and writing. I asked him what was resonating, and he said, “I’m not sure what it is, but something is so pleasant about singing ‘I’ll keeep holding onnnn’.” <3 <3


”Listen to that fear that’s gone!” :-)

There are so many dang changes and uncertainty in this realm, but we’re all lit up in the forward-moving swell.

“Grandma gifted ghost pencil…Hey! Mama, there’s alliteration in there!”

We continued with Monday’s Haudenosaunee theme, and will work on a different theme each week.

Friday is “free” day and he got to choose what he’d work on (he chose math by rolling dice to make equations he solves) and then drew Char Gar Gothakon from Scooby Doo.

Q - He has the power to move things with his voice!

j - What would you do if you had that power?

Q - I’d stop cars from crashing into eachother by moving them out of the way with my voice.

And because he is a mini-Ian and filled-to-bursting with a passion to draw, every piece of schoolwork has some bit of art on it. Here seen: a Beetlejuice Cartoon sandworm.

On math work <3

Like getting distracted on your way back with a hall-pass, but instead you stop to snuggle your cat on the way back from the bathroom. :-)

He’s really working on facial expressions lately, and it’s fun to watch. <3

Recess :-)

PE (yard laps)

Sometimes he uses a reference and does multi versions, capturing something different each time.
Here seen: Barbara riding the sandworm in Beetlejuice.

When you get a letter from your fellow homeschooled penpal Aria. <3

What’s the most impactful thing you can do as an individual to help your kin, community, millions of species, and planet? Transition as plant-based as possible.🌎♥️

Why? Plant-Based foods are environmentally imperative 🌎. They also promote ideal health💪 (which takes stress off our overburdened health care system), are inexpensive🙌, delicious🤤, & compassionate. 💕  

Why imperative, though? 🤔We’re approaching (& have crossed) climate tipping points that will doom our kin & millions of other species. 😱📣Reducing/eliminating animal products is the *most impactful thing an individual can do* to prevent worse. 🌎🔥

Why? Animal Agriculture creates more emissions than the entire transportation sector combined, it’s tied to water waste/loss/pollution (<-- freshwater is our most precious resource💧), land loss/deforestation (<-- exacerbates climate change by reducing our ability to sequester carbon🔥🌎), ocean acidification (<-- FYI 50-85% of earth’s oxygen originates from oceanic plankton🌊) & vast species loss/extinction/suffering💔📣🌎

Plus, consuming animal products is tied to increased risk of cardiovascular disease❤️‍🩹, diabetes👎, cancer👎, and chronic disease👎; whereas Plant-Based feasting is linked to preventing/reversing some of our most common diseases (<— like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer); plus it promotes ideal health & robust strength (ie Olympians, Weightlifters, Endurance Athletes are thriving via PBWFs too). 🎉🙌♥️

What organizations are promoting plant-based diets for best health and environmental stability? National Institutes of Health,  Mayo Clinic, Yale, the United Nations, Harvard School of Health,  American Heart Association, American College of Cardiology, American Cancer Society, American Diabetes Association, The American Academy of Pediatrics, National Kidney Foundation, even the Parkinson’s Foundation.

We’re all overwhelmed in one way or another, but for the sake of our kin (and the millions of species we share this planet with) we need to start pivoting forward. As someone who once rarely ate green things & used to eat animal products at every meal, I can assure you that is possible, affordable, enjoyable, & purposeful to pivot Plant-Based. In fact, our whole family is now healthier/stronger than ever. 🙌♥️

Anecdotally, our son had failure-to-thrive, was also plagued with perpetual ear-infections/sinus-infections, and had an omnipresent runny nose. What was he eating? Grass-fed milk, organic/antibiotic-free/grass-fed/local meats, eggs from organic-fed/well-loved chickens from a neighbor, every meal came with vegetables, and we limited junkfood. He was healed via a plant-based diet: he’s launched out of that diagnosis and the last time he had a sinus-infection (or was sick at all) was in 2019 when he had some cheese at a school Christmas party. Before shifting to PBWF’s he was sick every month, and how he’s a robust, vital, thriving kiddo. 🙌🎉♥️

If you think any of the above sounds over-reached/absurd/impossible, please go read the links above. I understand the inclination to hackle-raise (<—because I was once totally there) but the science is clear: any step we make forward is imperative (<—and again “STEPS” is the focus. Don’t leap, just start making steps!). It’s as simple as starting with one meal a week and growing from there.💕

We have the ability (deliciously, healthfully, kindly, inexpensively) to *preserve/protect* the planet we share with millions of species & our kin. How are we going to use that power today?✌️🤟🖖