www.eatlocalchallenge.com

Eating Locally in the North Woods of Wisconsin

So far, here in the far northern reaches of Wisconsin..this challenge has been easy-ish...for us at least.

I have a garden center where I teach folks to "feed ourselves"...we have had plenty of produce from our gardens.  I've been drying various foods like crazy for the long winter ahead.  I do some canning also, but drying is so much easier and less risky.

We have 7 apple trees, so there's loads of dried apple rings and applesauce and apple leather for the months ahead.

Berries and grapes, both native and cultivated, find their way into jams and leathers.  I'm drying 15 herbs for future use.

A few years ago I built my green growing area on the south side of my house, there are plenty of veggies that will continue to grow through the winter to feed us: broccoli, brussels sprouts, tomatoes, onions, beans...all will continue to produce for us until I give them their "fake winter break" from mid December through "wake up" in February when the sun gets high enough to get them all growing again.

The Hodag Farmer's market in Rhinelander, WI was a treasure trove of all the food products I don't grow or produce...honey, corn, certain squashes.  For the past 4 years, our meat has come from an organic potato farmer about 45 miles south.  He's grown us field grazed beef and pork and chickens.

We've been trying to eat locally for the past 5 years and doing a fairly good job of it.  I'm trying to find a variety of banana tree that will grow, potted in our greenroom and I'd like a fig tree and MUST learn how to grow peanuts in containers...because my husband will not live without his daily PB and jelly sandwich!!!!  I've tried to get him to eat local nut butter...but to no avail.....Any help with these issues would be greatly appreciated.

One of my on going projects up here is to find a local mom and pop restaurant willing to add local selections to their menu.  So far...no luck...but I can feel it happening soon!!!

LynnAnn owns and operates a people/earth friendly garden center in the far northern reaches of Wisconsin.

Gardening with Conscience is emblazoned on her sign.

What is a beautiful landscape?

My daughter and I are now in the Midwest visiting her grandparents, so all I was able to manage today was some more locally made bread for breakfast. I had intended to put some local organic berry jam on it, but when I cracked open the jar there was mold on top. So much for that. It's hard to lose even a little when you don't have that many options to begin with.

We made a day trip to Grant's Farm today (a sort of historical site/game park/family attraction outside St. Louis), and the highway goes straight through southern Illinois farmland. Having lived most of my life in the Ohio River valley and south-central Indiana, this is the landscape that feels like "home" to me. The open, gently rolling fields standing under a big sky, planted in corn, soybeans, or wheat, or serving as cattle pasture, punctuated by large single trees or little stands of forest, the clusters of farmhouses and outbuildings; seeing these vistas provokes a pleasurable nostalgia, a return to the backdrop for trips to my own grandparents and, later, my universities. It's harvest time now, and the fields are particularly attractive, glowing orange and tawny gold in the setting sun, the newly shorn rows of corn stubble proclaiming 'the human hand has been here.'

However, now that I'm invested in local and sustainable food, I'm reading other elements in these scenes, seeing the acres of monoculture and of crops that may be used for fuel instead of food; watching the huge combines and trucks that have become the symbol of industrialized, oil-driven agriculture; seeing the brown, dust-laden clouds carrying away vital topsoil to pollute our waterways and choke our oceans.

I think about the Eat Local Challenge and wonder what it would mean to these farmers if we were able to turn the agricultural system upside down; what would the fields look like then? Would they be unfamiliar; would they be beautiful? What would happen to the machines they've paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy? Would the grain silos be empty? Is it possible some of them might return to using the magnificent draft horses we saw today for their original purpose? I wish I knew, and I hope we'll see the day when a reimagined landscape is not only possible, but profitable, and sustainable.

Angela Jordan is a stay-at-home mom, web designer, and local food blogger living in Mobile AL.

Eating locally in Chicago

Local eaters in the Chicago area now have a new resource available to them: The Local Beet.  One of the founders is an author for this site, and it looks like it is already a great reference for Chicago-area locavores!

Among other features, check out their discussion forum covering topics like local food sources, making a root cellar, and finding local food at Whole Foods.

Eating Locally in Madison, Wisconsin.

Locavores in the Madison, Wisconsin area now have a new tool to find locally grown food.  Built by a group of geography students for the University of Wisconsin at Madison, the local food map is interactive and allows a user to search by Co-op, Market, CSA, Farm, Restaurant, or Community Garden and to further segment by Meat/Poultry, Produce and Dairy.  It's well worth checking out!

What About The Celery

By VI

Baby it's cold outside.  Around me, there's a limited growing season and no year-round farmer's markets.  Yet, thank you very much, I still manage, some oranges aside, to eat local.  The hardest thing about eating local in Chicago: not managing your stock of root vegetables or wondering where you could put fifty pounds of potatoes. No, it's not having to eat all those root vegetables and potatoes.  While my family and I allow exceptions for things that do not grow around here, those oranges; we will not dabble in stuff that we can get, at least in season.  So, no matter how bad our apricot crop was this year, we will not get an outta region apricot.  Which gets us to the celery.  That's hard.  I got a head of celery this week, and it made me really happy.

Finding Justus

by Expat Chef

I can’t go home again, or at least not without a million memories good and bad flooding my mind and heart. After high school, I spent quite a bit of time seeking to be anywhere else but there. Even 22 years later, it still takes a lot for me to return to that small town community less than an hour away. Usually it’s a call from one of my best friends. Last trip, however, it was a call to the dinner table at Justus Drugstore.

When you are lucky enough to live in a small city with more than a couple James Beard award-winning chefs in it, it seems pretty odd that you’d go 40 miles north to a former drugstore in the main square of a small town to dine. Frankly, small town fare up there is usually a diner or two, or fast food on the fringes near the highway. Not exactly cutting edge cuisine territory even if it is the perfect terrior to source the food from.

Another Harvest Season Passes

by Expat Chef

It seems like each year I do the Eat Local Challenge that it becomes a greater part of my life. Not only does the amount and types of foods that I buy locally increase each year, but I feel myself becoming more deeply connected to this way of life.

I tried my hand at putting up foods for winter, mainly freezing and seed saving, although my current tactic is stockpiling vast amounts of sweet potatoes, pumpkins and squash. (I actually have even more now). I just finished preparing many of the season's last vegetables as nine quarts of soup and stashing that in the freezer for a cold winter's feast. However, the one thing I did not try my hand at during September's challenge was canning. I wanted to, I just could not find the time amidst all the weekly cooking and little one running around.

This does not stop me from stockpiling information along with my pumpkins. I took some time to ask an expert, Julie Smith of Treehouse Berry Farm, for some good advice for a beginner like myself. Julie and her family have an orchard and can and sell a huge variety of jams, salsas, preserves and jellies at my local farmers market. They also make homemade lollipops to which my child became addicted. Julie was kind enough to answer a few questions for me despite a tremendously busy season of canning, wholesale business and fall festivals. We finally caught up and she shared some great tips for all of us inspired by this year's September Challenge.

Question: Canning is kind of a lost art. What is the most important advice you could offer someone who is just learning to can and preserve? How did you get started?

Local food in Kansas

By Marc

Via the Ethicurean digest, an article in the Parsons Sun about how farm subsidies are affecting rural life in Kansas ends with snapshot of the local food situation:

Paul Johnson, Lawrence, an organic farmer and lobbyist with the Kansas Catholic Conference, said subsidies do little for either rural populations or small farms.

He notes that Kansas consumers spend about $525 million a year on fruits and vegetables, yet only about $15 million worth of those crops is grown here.

It would take only 150,000 acres to grow enough fruits and vegetables to satisfy consumer demand in Kansas, according to studies done by Kansas State University in the Kansas River valley.

Johnson, a market gardener in the summer, recognizes that not all of the state would be suitable for fruits or vegetables. But he said Kansas is so focused on big agriculture that it misses the larger picture.

"I guess it's sexier or more handy to get into a $250,000 combine and ride the prairie," he said.

How does 150,000 acres compare with the amount of farmland in Kansas?  It's basically nothing:  Kansas has 10.3 million acres planted in wheat (according to the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service).

Marc lives in Berkeley, California.  He writes Mental Masala (an enticing blend of food, history, travel, and nature) and contributes to Ethicurean.

Image credit: Photo of the wheat harvest in the Palouse (Washington, Oregon, Idaho) from the USDA ARS Image Gallery.

Federal rules stymie local food efforts in Iowa

By Marc

"About 32,000 acres could supply Iowans with five servings a day of fruits and vegetables for three months out of the year, according to Iowa State University economists. Iowa farmers will harvest nearly 14 million acres of corn in 2007."  That's the sidebar message in a Des Moines Register article brought to my attention by the invaluable FarmPolicy.com newsletter.

Iowa farmer Gary Boysen grows sweet corn, peppers, tomatoes, cantaloupes and other produce on 65 acres near Harlan.  He sells his produce at nearby supermarkets and Wal-Mart.  And he would like to be growing more fruit and vegetables for Iowans.  However, a big obstacle is standing in his way:  federal agricultural rules.

If farmers want to plant fruit and vegetable crops on land enrolled in USDA subsidy programs, they must permanently give up the possibility of receiving benefits. Not just for the period when they are growing non-program crops.  Permanently. 

Summer Freeze

by Expat Chef

This September, the Eat Local Challenge is offering a whole range of ways to participate in the ELC September Challenge. With so many ways to participate, we can all join in the experience.

One of the ways to participate this year is to leahrn how to preserve your locally grown food for winter. It’s easy enough to do for many foods. You don’t even have to buy special equipment or learn to can. You just need a bit of time and freezer space.

I decided to try this approach this year after watching a friend of mine struggle with the vegetable side dishes for a 100-mile diet Thanksgiving. There's not much around for fresh veggies in late November other than sweet potatoes. What I do not use on the Thanksgiving table can easily be added to the turkey leftovers for a Turkey and Vegetable Soup, perfect for those chilly late fall days.