www.eatlocalchallenge.com

Local Wining

By Lucette

One of my local-eating plans was to bravely investigate local wines. It's not as if I live in California, after all--can't Californians just walk outside their doors and pluck bottles of fabulous wines along with the lemons and oranges? But this is Ohio, and Ohio wines do not have the glamor or reputation of their California siblings.

I already knew that Ohio is grape-growing country, at least along Lake Erie (the lake moderates the climate so well that the growing season along the shore is almost two weeks longer than it is farther inland). We used to vacation on Catawba Island (really a peninsula) on the lake--we drove to our cottage through fields alternating between vineyards growing Catawba grapes and orchards of ripening peaches. During our vacation week or 2, we always went out to dinner to a "dress-up restaurant" and often this was at a local winery with a romantic French name.

The Mobility Challenge

by Heather C.

There have been posts on this site about the challenges of eating locally if you don't have the money to pay premiums for local food or if you don't have the time or skill to cook from scratch.  I've recently found out about one more challenge - mobility.

I started with with specific goals for the challenge.  I found sources for local eggs.  I was going to plant a garden.  Everything was going according to plan and then I got hurt.  For the next several weeks I'm using crutches and a wheelchair to get around.  What does that have to do with eating locally?  As it turns out, everything. 

Slow Shopping

By Lucette

Shopping for local food is slow shopping--no zip-through-the-aisles grocery trips, tipping boxes and cans into the cart. I went shopping yesterday at a local chain (2 stores), the Mustard Seed Market, which has a priority of selling healthy and organic food.

I go to the MSM about once every three weeks to stock up on things I can't find elsewhere--they have a comprehensive and voluminous array of supplements and alternative kinds of pills and treatments, organic food in fresh, canned, boxed, and frozen forms, and various kinds of natural, unfragranced, unobjectionable creams, lotions, sunblocks, bath oils, etc. It's one of 2 places in the Cleveland area that I can buy Tom's of Maine toothpaste, for instance.

But, I found yesterday, a lot of it isn't local...

Is ignorance bliss?

by Heather C.

The premise of the Eat Local Challenge is that knowledge is power when it comes to your food choices.  Most people are disconnected from the food that they eat.  We spend a lot of time talking here about where the food comes from.  I think that there is also a need to educate people on what food is.

I've heard reports that say that people don't make the connection between a package of pork in the supermarket and a pig.  Maybe I'm naive but I thought that was an anomoly and not the norm.  But lately when discussing local food issues I've found out for myself that many people deliberately choose not to think about the sources of their food.  Is ignorance bliss?

The Box

Spring CSA Week 5

We did not subscribe to the spring CSA from Farmer Vicki in anticipation of the May Eat Local Challenge, but having the CSA surely makes the challenge that much easier.  In the Chicago area, it will still be a few weeks before the first farmer's markets open.  Vicki, however, using greenhouse technology provides me and her subscribers with a big box of produce each week.  And because of the greenhouse, our box includes, of all things in early May (for this part of the world), zucchini.

The Great Egg Hunt

by Heather C.

One of my goals for this month's challenge was to find a source of local eggs.  I live in an area where local eggs does not necessarily mean humanely raised chickens.   I'm amending my goal to say that I want to find a source of eggs from free-ranging happy pet chickens preferably belonging to a lady in a gingham dress. 

Driving around I've seen small signs in front yards advertising eggs for sale.  I wanted to find my eggs in an area that I normally drive through so I don't need to make special trips.  How hard could that be?  You see Eggs For Sale signs all the time around here.

Now I know that Eggs For Sale signs are a bit like the Loch Ness Monster.  The only people who see it are the ones who aren't looking.

Ohio is a Green State

by Lucette

I went to the farmers market on Saturday in preparation for my stepping out as a local eater. I took a canvas bag, a camera, and my sister. This was the opening day for this particular market, also the first time I'd been there (my usual market opens later in the spring). I saw this as a serious entry into a new way of looking at food, but as soon as I saw the white tents and the profusion of flowers and plants near the entrance, it was all over--I felt like I was going to the ice capades or the circus all over again.

It's Too Late

by VI

May 1.  I begin the challenge with a pot of Colombian coffee (not even fair trade I sadly confess).  While I do lighten the coffee with milk that is roughly local, I realize the May Challenge is a failure. 

OK, it's not a failure, and it's hardly even started, but it's not the coffee I am worried about.  The problem is, to a large extent, that you cannot just jump into eating local.  Let's skip all the stuff about potsum vs. coffee or lard vs. olive oil or beer vs. wine--short term decisions on the challenge aspect of the challenge.  I'm talking about the need to be prepared, to plan, to look at the big(ger) picture.

The Box

by VI 

Spring CSA Week 4

[Note, my family has subscribed to a Spring CSA offered by a local Illinois farm called Genesis Growers --owned by "Farmer Vicki".  This CSA started in April and relies on greenhouses to get a head start on the growing season.] 

Farmer Vicki noted in her weekly e-mail that her spring greenhouse crops were not coming in so well.

"We have been having problems with one greenhouse in that the crops are not all getting ready at the same time.  It is frustrating, but so far I have not figured out why.  The only clue I have is that we did a poor job spreading the composted manure.  In some places it is thick and others, thin.  In this case, though I have been a poor diagnostician."

hi: an intro

by Lucette

I'm a teacher and a writer, long-time gardener, have always been interested in cooking, but never thought much about eating locally until I started reading food blogs a couple of years ago. I did the August eat local challenge last year, but I didn't have a blog then, so this is my first opportunity to sound off about it. Last year, I just bugged everyone I knew, asking them if they'd thought about how far that apricot had come, etc.

We're lucky to have a number of farm markets in the Cleveland area, so I'm hoping to find exciting sustenance--the first one opened last Saturday, and I'm planning my first visit on April 29, to stock up. I have some things frozen from last year (applesauce, pesto, whole cherry tomatoes, peach jam, tomato sauce), some things canned by my boyfriend's father (peaches, tomatoes), and a fair amount of dried herbs.

I'm In

by VI

I thought I'll be doing enough posting on eating local.  I thought I'd make my first post on not eating local.  I have a big weakness.

I have a fall CSA.  I have a spring CSA.  Once the farmer's markets are up and running in the Chicago area, I will visit at least weekly.  I have freezers full of last year's red peppers.  My basement lays waste to sprouting root vegetables not quite worked through.  I have piles of jams purchased at farm stores all around.  I made my family live on apples for months.  Heck, I visit the dollar store because they sell potatoes from Wisconsin.  But I do this.

I buy prepared salads.  All the time.  I visit often Polish or Russian deli's in the parts of Chicago I frequent. 

Eating local in Ohio

by Heather C.

My first experience with the concept of eating seasonally and locally was with sweet corn.  I came from a corn growing area where stands sprouted on roadsides when the crop was ready.  You gorged yourself because when it was gone it was gone.  No grocery store carried corn on the cob.  When I went to school in TN I found corn on the cob in the store.  I was so excited that I could eat it more often.  But it tasted awful.  I thought I cooked it wrong but soon realized that that was the difference between fresh from the farm and store-bought.

I did the Eat Local challenge in August last year.  That changed my way of thinking about food.  I live in central Ohio surrounded by corn fields but never explored the food sources in my area. 

Ladies & Gentlemen, We Have the Year's First Farmer's Market Buy

by Lisa D.

I have been so excited waiting for the farmer's markets to begin that I've been driving past the North Market on busy Saturday mornings, just to see if there was any movement.  Yesterday I was rewarded - it might only be mesclun mix, but it's something.  Today's lettuce comes from Toad Hill Organics, which also provides many items for Alana's restaurant (surely Columbus' premier supporter and instigator of local product usage), including her "house" salad with the Toad Hill Organic greens, carrots, raisins, etc.  Toad Hill had farm-fresh eggs, the beautiful mesclun mix pictured above, spinach and Asian greens for stir-frying available at Saturday's Market.  They were also cooking up scrambled eggs and stir-fry.  For a mostly complete list of Central Ohio farmer's markets, click here.