by Patrick
As the month progresses, I am learning more about our local foodshed every day. Living in this way, always asking about where food comes from, and challenging ourselves to see how locally we can eat, brings a certain energy to nearly every meal. Our interactions with farmers, vendors, restaurateurs, and buyers at the grocery store are all imbued with a kind of vital force. Once I explain our mission, the person on the other end of the phone line, or the other side of the table, becomes excited and animated in their efforts to help us find information about the food we're buying, or a good source for something we need.
In the past week, we have made some decisions, and discovered some foods, that make me understand even more deeply the gray areas between "in the foodshed" and "out of the foodshed." I've begun to realize that this month's challenge is the refinement of a practice that will inform our food choices for the rest of our lives.
I'm starting to think about things differently. Instead of thinking of, say, parmagiano reggiano as a necessary exception, I am thinking about how we could live without it, or replace it with something produced locally. And instead of thinking about how I miss one flavor or another, I'm finding that I love the intensity of the local flavors. This is partly due to the freshness and proximity of the ingredients, and partly because we're making things out of unusual ingredients -- like the dressing Holly made using Asian pear vinegar and locally-pressed sunflower oil, and Rogue Creamery's smoked blue cheese. It was not our usual, mellow, highly-refined balsamic vinaigrette, but it was an explosion of flavor, and after a few days of rest in the fridge it has actually become even better.
After some trepidation at the beginning about all that we would not be able to eat, I am finding instead that I appreciate, with newfound intensity, every bit of food we can find that is locally grown or produced. I am treasuring these opportunities to talk to farmers and producers, and I feel energized by their enthusiasm and the love they have for their work. Suddenly, limiting ourselves to eating locally feels less like a restriction, and more like a blessing! I feel honored to take part in the chain of work and wisdom that goes into the food that we eat.
Here are some discoveries we've made over the past week.
• Rogue Creamery makes excellent cheeses from a single herd of cows. They're out of our foodshed (about 175 miles away) but we're widening the circle for them because they're in Oregon, and because they are a small company that benefits their own locale.
Also influencing our decision is their Smokey Blue, a smoked blue cheese made by cold-smoking the cheese over organic hazelnut shells. This cheese is one of the most amazing cheeses I have ever tasted. And it goes wonderfully in a salad with roasted hazelnuts. Try it if you can get it.
• Meanwhile we found an excellent supplier of truly local cheeses, Willamette Valley Cheese Company, in Salem. They make a havarti-like cheese called Brindisi, which ages into a hard, nutty cheese somewhat like parmagiano. They also make a jack-style cheese, and have just started to produce a delicious bloomy-rind soft sheep cheese. We took home quite a haul of cheeses from yesterday's market.
• Also at the market, we found a nearby grower who had beefsteak tomatoes from his hothouse, as well as local garlic, thus enhancing our ability to make a delicious lamb-meatball and tomato tagine last night! I even found Oregon onions at the co-op.
• Our "local" grain supplier, Shepherd's Grain isn't very local -- they are a grower cooperative in the Columbia Plateau about 300 miles to the east. However, they're as close as we can get for grains and legumes, and they are practicing sustainable agriculture in a valuable farming region that desperately needs the kind of care they're using. Read their web site for extensive information.
Sunday we got a bulk order of 100 pounds of flour and 50 pounds of chickpeas and lentils from Shepherd's Grain's Portland distributor. We're going to share out the bounty with a few interested families.
Of course, it doesn't hurt that their chickpeas are plump, fast-cooking, and the best I've had. Or that their little brown lentils, called Padina lentils, are like a nuttier-tasting brown version of the famous Puy lentil. They hold their shape wonderfully and work very nicely in soups and salads.
• There was a small farm who made a go at raising pastured chickens in Noti, Oregon, but recently they ceased production on poultry. This was a result, as I understand it, of the high cost and limited access of the nearest USDA-approved processing facility. This left us in a quandary when it came to eatin' chickens, since the nearest generally-available chicken producer is Draper Valley, in northern California. However, a couple weeks ago at the PSU farmers' market we came across Nizich Farm, a small family farm in nearby Oregon City. They grow and sell chicken, rabbit, duck, turkey, and occasionally beef and lamb. Holly and I were wondering out loud how they managed in the face of the USDA processing issue, until we remembered that farmers who sell directly to the consumer can do their slaughtering and butchering themselves -- another direct benefit, to the farmers, of eating locally. We got a chicken from the Nizich folks, and I've ordered two ducks for next Saturday, so I can make my first attempt at roast duck. I'll also collect the rendered duck fat for making some future duck rillette, and just for general cooking purposes.
• At the beginning of the month I made some fresh panir, a firm, simple Indian-style cheese. This is the photo at the top of the post. The method is quite simple: you heat the milk, break it into curds using an acid agent (such as lemon juice or citric acid), and hang the curds to drain. For the initial batch I used local milk and California lemons. I saved the whey, and I learned that further batches of cheese can be made using the whey as the acid agent, 1 part whey to 4 parts milk. So further batches of cheese, one of which I hope to make soon, will use local ingredients only!
• We've started to take the challenge outside, to some local restaurants. One of our favorite restaurants, Navarre, gets their produce from the same CSA that we use, 47th Avenue Farm. The chef there, John Taboada, was excited to hear that we were on what we called "a local diet" and came out to tell us what we could eat. Anything but the duck or the seafood. (Or the potatoes. Or the mushrooms.) We had a rabbit pate, some very tasty corned bison brisket, broccoli raab, and some other dishes, along with a Willamette Valley wine.
We also succeeded in ordering an entirely locally-sourced pizza, much to my astonishment. And it was delicious! I picked it up on my bike rather than have it delivered, just to keep the food-miles at a minimum.
We will be taking the challenge to several other local restaurants over the course of the month (oh, how we suffer!). I may write a sort of locally-biased restaurant review about how they all fare.
Patrick & Holly live in Portland, Oregon. Their blog Letter from Hen Waller records their experiences in urban homesteading, human-powered transportation, and otherwise living la vida local.
