Exceptions (Grace family version)

For every rule there are exceptions. It's as true for grammar as it is for eating Alabama. Many have asked what our exceptions are, so we're laying them out on the table. We should also note as a general rule that two decisions are factored in when purchasing our exceptions. First, how far did these goods travel to get here, and secondly, were they grown, raised, etc. in fair and sustainable ways. This second question is much more difficult to answer about products produced by multinational corporations, but we're trying to do our best. These are the Grace's exceptions, Joe and Sara's differ. They are, from left to right, roughly:

1) Tea - only fair trade and organic from our local health food store. We can't grow tea with enough caffeine here in Bama.

2) Leavening agents - both yeast (for when we get more wheat and flour) and baking powder.

3) Salt N' Peppa

4) Cooking oils - mainly olive oil, but vegetable or peanut for frying. We'd love to find a local peanut oil manufacturer in the state, but so far no dice.

5) Some spices - dried local when we've got them.

6) Vinegar - often a replacement for lemon in recipes and also a base for dressings, marinades, and sauces.

7) Beer - but only Beer from nearby states: Abita (just over 4 hours from Tuscaloosa in Lousiana), Lazy Magnolia (4 hours away in Mississippi), and Sweetwater (3 hours away in Atlanta). Because of our archaic prohibition-era beer laws, it's nearly impossible for a brewery to operate in Alabama. The state's only brewery from my hometown of Huntsville burned last year and is in the process of rebuilding. (Terrapin, a wonderful brewery in Athens, Georgia, contract brews their bottles up to Maryland, but their kegs are safe on our exception list.)

Part of our rational for these exceptions is selfish - we love food and we'd like to get the most out of the ingredients we have. Without oil we couldn't do a lot of things, like make chips (which would make life with Rashmi difficult), and without spices we couldn't cook Indian food, make a tasty soup, season a piece of meat, etc. But the other rational is historic. Are we going to go back to pre-modern days in our experiment, hunting only wildlife while growing corn and other native edibles? Of course not. So we allow ourselves much of what has always been imported into Alabama - tea and spices and oils and beer. If there was a strong native beer culture in Alabama, I'm not aware of it. As Joe and I are both homebrewers, we've discussed making an all local beer with local ingredients. We're still hunting a few down, and we'll let you know if anything develops on that front.