Raw Milk

Today Mike and Ender and I had a proper English tea, with homemade scones, double devon cream and jam. Devon cream is a pasteurized approximation of clotted cream, which I had in York when I went to England and is the greatest thing ever. I would describe it as one step down from butter (milkfat wise) and one step up from whipped cream. You spread it on the sweet, biscuity scone and top it with some rasberry jam and it has this creamy delightful flavour. The Devon cream, which I purchased from Global Cheese in Kensington market, was very good. Not quite as good as the stuff I had in Europe though. Which got me thinking. None of the dairy products that I've had in Canada have quite compared to those that I've had in Europe. From the butter on my toast to the cream in my coffee, European milk just tastes better. And that's because a lot of it isn't pasteurized. Not pasteurized? You say. Well then it must be unhealthy! Indeed, 'raw milk' as it's called, is not good for those with compromised immune systems, or children, but it would seem people have been happily consuming it in many parts of the world for hundreds of years. And the reason that it's not recommended is based on the possibility that the milk is bad, not a certainty. As some raw milk advocates say, it's more work to keep cows healthy enough for healthy unpasteurized milk.

I also had unpasteurized milk when I was staying with the Twelve Tribes (lovely people, and I'll say more about them in a later post) during my masters thesis research on new religious movements. They had bought a cow to provide milk to the whole community. They made their own yogurt out of it, as well as drank it with mate and it was wonderful. They weren't allowed to serve it in their shop, however, due to Canadian milk law.

For more information on the raw milk debacle of late here in Canada, click here.

So I would like to make my own, proper clotted cream with it's delicate palatability, and for that it would seem I need to buy a share in a cow. Let it be so. Updates on this quest to follow.

According to the babyhawk website, my baby carrier is about to ship! Soon I'll be trucking around the city again with my baby like a free woman. I'm starting to get really cabin feverish. While this has been the easiest winter in recent memory, I still am antsy for the warm weather to return. And me, without a full time job, it's just extra sweet. I've already promised my little man that we will spend most of our time in the park, sun on our faces, grass between our toes. He'll be walking then (!) and I'll probably get rid of this doughy winter flesh simply by running after him.

I've been implementing a few steps in improving Ender's sleep, or rather, his transition into sleep. After reading a few books on the subject, even cosleeping advocates seem to agree that a bedtime routine is reassuring and healthy for children. Sometimes their days can be so chaotic and different that a little bit of familiarty really helps them wind down. I still remember coming home from a birthday party when I was 8 and being jerked out of sleep every five minutes due to half sleep hallucinations that I was still involved in a water pistol fight. So now our routine involves sitting in some warm water in the sink for about five minutes, getting toweled off and put in pj's and a fresh diaper, reading a story, and then nursing to sleep. So far it has been working fabulously, and Ender seems to think it's peachy keen. He's teething at the moment, so anything that keeps him calm and confident that the world isn't ending is a good thing.

Well, I guess that's all my friends. Nicoliosis out.