After dinner, the meeting started with a couple announcements. Our new friend and future guest speaker Jamil Avdiyev gave us a brief introduction to High Brix nutrient-dense foods, and shared samples of his delicious home-grown carrots. Local almond farmer, George Yemetz came by for a visit and told us about his farm-fresh raw unpasteurized almonds. Luckily he had some samples to share, and the group was more than happy to indulge. Thank you, Jaye and Suzanne, for helping organize a group purchase! And gratitude goes out to our fine friend Farmer Yemetz for taking the time to send us thank you notes for supporting his business. What a class act!
As the Santa Anna Winds started rolling in from the desert, a small group of us who attended the Wise Traditions conference in Dallas showed photos from our trips. Karen, Steve, Rolf, & Elaina gave lively presentations as we eagerly viewed the slide shows. Everyone contributed their own personal photos to the presentation, even those who couldn't make it to the meeting like Monica Ford aka Real Food Devotee. Photos depicted scenes from conference presentations, special events, vendors, posters, and even a few proud poses with some big hitters like health & nutrition guru Dr. Joe Mercola, Canadian Raw Milk Champion Farmer Michael Schmidt, WAPF president Sally Fallon, and our local hero and founder of the Raw Milk Institute Mark McAfee, to name a few. There were also some beautiful shots of the delicious wholesome food at the conference, as well as scenes from post-conference activities like the cooking class and the field trip to 3 local sustainable Texas farms. We finished up the slide shows just as the winds were picking up and the lights began to flicker. Then from the closing of the conference, we watched a video clip of Mark McAfee's official introduction of the Raw Milk Institute. It was a wonderful evening to behold, and hopefully an inspiration to the whole group to join together and bring a much larger southern California contingent to the conference next year in Santa Clara, California.
Lastly, fired up with enthusiasm brought home from the conference, Karen in her Texas cowboy best encouraged everyone to please join and support the 3 most important organizations which actively help us gain and maintain access to local, sustainably-raised farm-fresh foods: the Weston A. Price Foundation, the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, and now the Raw Milk Institute. Answering Karen's call to suggest ways to encourage everyone to join and support these valuable organizations, Elaina proposed that we collect money on the spot to give away one membership to the Weston A. Price Foundation. Money was promptly collected and about 6 people participated in a drawing for the membership. The winner turned out to be the first one to draw straws: Alfred Gonzales. Congratulations, Alfred! And thank you, Elaina, for that great idea! As long as all participants are in agreement, this would be a fun tradition to include at the close of every meeting!
Our meeting finished up just in the knick of time, for not long after, the Santa Annas successfully stole our power! Little did we know about the devastation to expect the next morning ... As people returned to their vehicles battling hurricane-speed winds, it seemed everyone made it home safely. I hope no one suffered any significant physical or financial damage from the storm. Many of us were out of power for at least 5 days, Yours Truly among them! Hence the delay of this posting!
Now that things are slowly getting back to normal, I wish everyone a happy, healthy Holiday Season. Hope to see you at our next meeting!
