www.eatlocalchallenge.com

Michael Pollan at Mondavi Center (11-29-06)

Eating local has influenced areas of my life beyond food.  Take gifts.  I’m not a fan of acquiring more stuff, especially if the stuff was made a million miles away.  So my mom and I have a new tradition.  We take each other out to see plays, hear music and participate in cultural events.  This year for my birthday we heard Michael Pollan speak the Mondavi Center at UC Davis.  Awesome gift, Mom.

Did you know you are 10 times more likely to have a conversation at a farmers’ market than you are at a grocery store?  Or that Americans get 80% of their diet from 4 or 5 plants?  By the way, if you guess that two of them are corn and soy, you’re right.

He also noted that we ship sugar cookies to the Danes and the Danes ship sugar cookies to us, and asked wouldn’t it be cheaper if we just swapped recipes?

He was funny, the talk was riveting, and here’s a recap of some of what he said (based on notes I wrote on my program in the dark with a faulty pen).

How far has local food taken you?

By Suzanne Miller

My food travels far fewer miles than it used to, but boy have I been on a journey. Sometimes I’ve gone on autopilot, but I’m miles away from where I was way back in Spring of 2005.

But, yes, occasionally I’ve coasted. Have you? Take this summer. In a burst of energy last winter I started a vegetable garden (the ne plus ultra of local food). Between weeding the garden, immersing myself in new projects and interests, battling the occasional illness or family emergency, and running after my toddler, my energy for local food lost momentum. I still go to the Farmers’ Market, I get my CSA boxes, I still reach for local foods at the store. Yet…

Local food: the afterlife

by Suzanne Miller

Since joining the Eat Local Challenge last year, I’ve focused on growing, harvesting and eating local food.  The fun stuff.

But not all the food I buy or grow ends up on my plate.  I cut off carrot tops, cull the cauliflower and peel the potato.  And then…?

Recently my Eatwell CSA newsletter talked about the farm’s compost, which is made from food waste gathered in the Bay Area.  This snippet caught my eye:

“Keeping food waste out of the dumps is very important.  In the dump, food waste decomposes and produces methane, a greenhouse gas.”

I emailed Eatwell and asked what I should do with my scraps.  The answer?  A stern “Compost! And if you fail, try, try again!”

My husband looked with unease as I hauled out white 5-gallon buckets for my annual “what the hell” compost attempt.

But this time, I decided to do something different:  bokashi, or “effective micro-organism” compost.

U-pick, U-eat, U-love

 

by Suzanne Miller

I second Birdsong’s ode to strawberries.  ‘Tis the season indeed.

In Davis there’s a small organic u-pick strawberry field at Pacific Star Farm.   It’s about 10 minutes from my house on a old county road.  We arrived late on Memorial Day.  It was hot.  The field radiated a strawberry smell that – how can I say this – enveloped us.  It was like we wandered into a warm strawberry cloud.  Heaven. 

As I said the farm is organic, so it’s safe for me and my toddler.  She “helps me”: takes strawberries out of my bucket, stares at them with wonder and awe, sticks her finger in them as far as it will go, then throws them on the ground.  She doesn’t want to eat them  (ever since my husband snuck sardines in her rice, she’s rightfully suspicious of new food), but I suspect that next year she’ll be stuffing her mouth.

A Local Yokel Browses the Bulk Section

by Suzanne Miller

My local food coop has a fabulous bulk section.  Fair-trade coffee, lots of organic grains, hard-to-find flours, herbs and spices… the selection is fabulous.  And someone there has a sense of humor:  the bin number for refined white sugar is 6666.  Hee.

I like buying in bulk.  It reduces food waste and packaging.  The prices are great.  I buy as much as I need and if I’m feeling really on top of my game, I bring my own glass jars from home and skip the plastic bags.

So I thought it would only be natural for the coop to label the origin of the bulk products.   Buying locally and in bulk?  Double whammy goodness.

Well, I was wrong.

I for one welcome our new corporate overlords

by Suzanne Miller

I first read about the Locavores and the Eat Local Challenge almost a year ago in an SF Chronicle article. It instantly appealed to me.

I had been floundering, trying to figure out what was seasonal (anyone ever looked at agriculture harvesting tables??). Wandering the farmers markets, I’d clutch my cloth bag and wonder what on earth people did with eggplants. But joining a group of people eating local for a month seemed… I dunno, doable. It also motivated me to get serious and buy a fricking eggplant.

When I started getting ready for August, amazing things happened.

 

In desperation, I joined a CSA, which I recommend for eat-local newbies. You don’t need to figure out what to buy, when, or what to do with it. You get a box of just-picked produce from a local farm with a newsletter telling you how to store the food, ideas for cooking the food, and farm updates. 

Women at the plough

by Suzanne Miller

The UC Davis Small Farm Center recently published a book honoring 17 California farmers, ranchers, beekeepers, chese makers and wine makers.  All women.  Cool, huh?

One them is Jennifer Greene, who runs Windborne Farm up in Fort Jones (near the Oregon border).  She's on the cover and yes, she uses draft horses to plough her farm!  I belong to her grain CSA and there's nothing like bags of freshly ground flour to inspire me to bake.  She might be technically beyond a 100 mile radius of my house, but I'm keeping in mind the spirit of the challenge.  If you know of a locally-owned, sustainable, organic farm that's a bit beyond your foodshed but offers juicy carrots, fragrant honey or some cheese you just can't live without, consider making it an exemption.

Suzanne Miller lives in Northern California and writes about her attempts to eat local, grow native plants and live life at www.adjectivenoun.com.