Hi, I’m Joan and welcome to Grist and Greens!

I know I am starting WAY behind. Most blogs I follow seem to have been up and running forever but here we are!

A little about me: I recently move to the Front Range (meaning just east of the Rocky Mountains) of Colorado and caught the outdoor, foraging, gardening, living seasonally, and sustainably bug. This has always been a part of who I am but now that I live in, what I hope, is a more permanent and stable environment I have really taken it upon myself to follow through with it. I am also a little bit of a perfectionist. I decided I would use this blog to help me embrace the imperfect side of everything and create a blog that has, dare I say, the ones that didn’t turn out as expected along with the ones that do. Ok, ok, not every mess-up…because no one wants to know all the iterations of a recipe you had to do…but the mess-ups I think have a learning experience in them (like these Sourdough Chocolate Chip Cookies). I need to let go of some of my perfectionist ways and just embrace the mess. I apologize now, the focus might change as I go, but isn’t that life?

So why Grist and Greens? No, I did not misspell grits. Grist is grain that is ground in a mill to make flour. There is a famous proverb: “All is grist for the mill” – which more or less translates to “everything can be useful”. The miller profited from every grain that was brought to him because he charged for the act of grinding, not for the quality. Thus grist encompasses my feelings and goals for this blog pretty well:

1. I want to live as seasonably as possible: grow my own food, participate in a local CSA (community shared agriculture) and cook with what they give me, forage, and preserve what I can to eat it in later seasons. Grist is ground grain for later use but also can and should be used as fresh as possible.
2. I want to live as sustainably as possible: use all the parts of of the plant/animal, use what I have no matter the quality, and preserve what I cannot use immediately. This also applies to home life. I want to reuse materials in daily life and decor. The grain doesn’t matter, the miller always produces grist, profit from everything.
3. I want to learn as much as possible: life isn’t always pretty (yay Instagram misleading us) and I want this blog to show that even mistakes and messes I make result in “grist for the mill” to improve cooking, baking, foraging, and other aspects of life.
4. Plus grist is also a term used in beer making; grist becomes the mash for brewing beer. And my husband and I, as a couple, and Colorado as a state, are pretty into beer! Not sure where I am going with this yet. I would like to do more beer reviews on Thursday Thirst but so far only have a bit one on a beer festival in Breckenridge.

If you have any questions or comments, contact me, I would love to hear from you!

Disclosers:

All pictures are taken by me unless I show a reference in the description.