By Marc
During the month of May, I challenged myself to cook only ingredients from within a 100-mile circle around Berkeley, California. It was a learning---and sometimes yearning---experience for me to limit my ingredients so much (in one of the most agriculturally diverse areas in the nation, to be sure). This post is my attempt at a summary of my experience.
I had many conflicting thoughts during the challenge (for example: the sugar snap peas are so delicious; there's nothing to snack on; sugar glazed local pecans are amazing; some tofu would be ideal in this stir fry, but it's way too far outsider the circle; these local eggs make remarkable frittatas), so as I try to sum up my month of Eating Local, I keep thinking of the beginning of Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. You know how it goes: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,..." and so on. It seems ripe for adaptation into a description of my month of cooking and eating local, but I won't subject you to that potential literary disaster (feel free to give it a try in the comments...here is the full text of the novel).
How I Planned
The Eat Local Challenge was a time to try a new approach to shopping, cooking and snacking. With just a 100 mile "foodshed," I had to be more creative and resourceful. I couldn't just open a few cookbooks, jot down a list or two, and then hit Berkeley Bowl Marketplace for all my needs. ("The Bowl" is an amazing grocery store, but has very little information about the origin of their foods, with perhaps 10% of the produce with any origin designation.) Instead, I started by thinking up a theme (e.g., frittata, Washoku), noting the most critical ingredients (e.g., eggs, cheese), going to the Farmers' Market (usually Berkeley's Saturday market), buying way too much produce, and then improvising.
What and How I Cooked
Some of my meals were a multiplicity of simplicity. That is, more individual preparations than usual, but each item quickly prepared and lightly seasoned. For example, one meal consisted of seared mushrooms with garlic and soy sauce, snap peas and carrot simmered in a light sauce, a bowl of white rice, a potato-chard soup, and quick radish pickles. Five different items, but each one requiring just a few minutes of active work. Other times, I focused my efforts on a single complicated item like a frittata or souffle, and then rounded out the meal with a simple side dish or two. I wrote in detail about a few of my meals over at Mental Masala (this link will take you to a list of my posts).
I ended up cooking a lot of disk-shaped foods---crepes, fritattas, potato-crusted tart, pancakes, to name a few. Perhaps, like Roy Neary in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, I became obsessed with a shape, and it started intruding on my meals. For Neary, it was Devil's Tower, but for me the 100-mile circle must have gotten into my head. Although not quite as tasty as a slice of artisan bread from Acme or other local bakeries, the disk-shaped substitutes were often delicious: pancakes with almond butter from Full Belly Farms (#11 in the map below), honey from Lake County, and strawberries from Swanton Berry Farm (#24 below), or crepes wrapped around Fiscalini bandage-wrapped cheddar (#17).
Although it was difficult at times, I found the challenge to be a rewarding experience. The limited produce and staple palette required me to be more creative in the kitchen and certainly taught me a few new tricks. These new tricks, the deeper appreciation of seasonal eating, and many of the insights I have gained from reading the ELC blog will stay with me for a long time.
My Local Sources
Another reward of the challenge is the map below. It shows the origin of just about everything I cooked in my kitchen during the month of May.
- Berkeley (0 mi), Takara Sake: sake, mirin. My backyard: lemons, herbs.
- Mendocino (130 mi), Seabreeze Seavegetables: kombu
- Bodega Bay (53 mi), St. Benoit Yogurt: yogurt
- Marshall (40 mi), Straus Family Creamery: milk, butter, yogurt
- Point Reyes Station (33 mi), Cowgirl Creamery: Mt. Tam cheese
- Valley Ford (48 mi), Bellweather Cheese: sheep's milk ricotta
- Sebastopol (48 mi), Redwood Hill Farm: goat cheese feta
- Santa Rosa (50 mi), Ludwig Avenue Farm : eggs, potatoes, pecans
- Petaluma (33 mi), Clover Stornetta Dairy : half and half
- Middletown (63 mi), Michael Huber : honey
- Guinda (67 mi), Full Belly Farm: whole wheat flour, almond butter. Riverdog Farm: asparagus, sun dried tomatoes, artichokes, snap peas, garlic, cauliflower, cabbage
- Sacramento Valley (100 mi), Daiei Trading Co.: brown rice.
- Sacramento (70 mi), Bariani: olive oil
- Winters (50 mi), Terra Firma Farm: carrots
- Vacaville (37 mi), Solano Mushrooms : shiitake mushrooms
- Lodi (57 mi), unknown farm: okra greens, sweet potato leaves, bitter melon greens
- Modesto (71 mi), Fiscalini Cheese: San Joaquin Gold and bandage wrapped-cheddar cheese
- Hickman (86 mi), Stackhouse Brothers Orchards: almonds
- Clovis (155 mi), Vong Farms : ginger, daikon
- Chowchilla (120 mi), Happy Boy Farm: fava beans.
- South Dos Palos (105 mi), Koda Farms: short-grain rice
- Hollister (84 mi), Avalos Farm : cabbage, onions
- San Juan Batista (84 mi), Happy Boy Farm: leeks
- Davenport (54 mi), Swanton Berry Farm: strawberries
Non-local: soy sauce (Japan), sea salt, rice vinegar (Orange County, CA), Dijon mustard (France), white wine vinegar (France), cane sugar.
Marc lives in Berkeley, California and writes Mental Masala, a freshly-ground blend of food, history, travel, history, and nature.
Legend for 9-photo collage:
- Top row, left to right: Washoku-style meal, beet-orange-walnut salad and frittata, quick-pickled radishes
- Middle row: asparagus and goat cheese souffle, spring vegetables in Meyer lemon dressing, another Washoku-style meal
- Bottom row: vegetable chowder, bitter melon and greens, spinach and cheese tart with potato crust
