www.eatlocalchallenge.com

My Eat Local Month

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).

Cracking the Eat Local Code

by Holly

Patrick posted some of his end o' ELC thoughts a while back, but I've been stewing on mine for a while.

I had surprisingly mixed feelings at the outset of the challenge, after my initial burst of "right on!" when Patrick mentioned the idea. I tend to be a bit compulsive, and until I relaxed and let myself have spices from who knows where, and olive oil from California, I was feeling a bit caged. I think this is in no small part because we are still finding our place in our new city.

Lessons I Learned (or: Fanatacism in Moderation)

by Julie Cummins

photo: Star Route Farms, Bolinas, CA

Now that I've gotten some perspective on my somewhat extreme pledge to eat (almost) entirely local for the month of May, here are a few of the lessons I learned:

1. I, like all residents of the San Francisco Bay Area, am blessed. Many of the raw ingredients I eat are available from nearby producers who use relatively sustainable methods. The Challenge was a lot easier for me than for participants in places like Colorado and New Hampshire. The climate-moderating influence of the Pacific, the excellent soils, and the culture of food converge to make this one of the easiest places to eat all local, all the time. 

This disparity hit me when, towards the end of May, I traveled to Bend, Oregon for a friend's wedding.

Interview with an ELC Newbie

by Birdsong S.

Stacie is one of my virtual friends (no, not like the imaginary ones of my youth - you will see, she is very real).  We met through a group knitting effort, and read each other's personal blogs regularly.  She got very curious about the May Eat Local Challenge when I began promoting it the month before, and although she had some trepidations, decided to plunge in and give it a go.

As May wound down, I decided to interview Stacie, an eat-local newbie, to see how things went...

First off, tell us a little about who you are, where you live, rural, urban, etc.

My name is Stacie, and I am 36 and a mother of two little boys, 2 and 4 years old. I work a few hours a week at the local paper, and I love the extra time it gives me to garden, and knit, and blog. I live in NW Illinois, in a town of 2000 people.

Let the Eat Global Challenge begin...

Or, at least, let us return to eating from California.

by Patrick

Yesterday, noticing a severe bareness of cupboards, we went to our local supernatural-market, New Seasons, to stock up on some basics. As it was the last day of May, we decided that the Eat Local Challenge was officially over.

Our Eat Local Challenge has been a heavily nuanced affair; we've made exceptions, we've lived without certain things and either found replacements or found that we didn't miss them so much . . . and then there are the things that we have lived without, and that I am really glad to see again.

May Ends--the Challenge Continues

 

By Jennifer BB

It would be an understatement to say that this year's May Eat Local Challenge and last year's, which took place in August, were miles apart--literally.  Here in the Northeast (upstate New York to be exact) the farmers markets are just beginning to expand their produce offerings beyond spring onions, pea shoots, lettuce mix and seedlings for transplant.  The chickens on offer are growing from young spring chickens into broilers,  Meanwhile the dairy products--milk, butter, cheeses, yogurt--and local granola, maple syrup, honey, and jams are as plentiful as ever.  All the same, the challenge to eat locally is just beginning.  Eating within our foodshed was definitely more challenging this early in the season but not impossible.  We are ready for June.

Hitting the Sweet Spot

by Cookiecrumb

Everything tastes good! Even my savory dishes are inexplicably sweet, but not in a sugary way. Butter tastes sweet. Onions taste sweet. By god, the other day, hamburger tasted sweet.

Sweet! Oh my.

Last year I described the transformation I experienced after a month of eating locally as "rehab for my taste buds."

I haven't used sugar for 10 months, except for the occasional gummi bear, so I guess I have a whole new definition of "sweet."

I attribute this sensation not only to restricting my food to the 100-mile foodshed, but to the undeniable fact that the food is fresher — because it's local! Fresh peas are sweet. Fresh fish is sweet. Fresh yogurt is sweet.

Sunday at the Marin Farmers' Market

by Jack & Joanne

Joanne, Trent and I got on the road at 9am (an amazing early start for us!) to drive the 40 minutes to the Marin Sunday Farmers' Market in San Rafael. We scored a parking spot easily - we usually get there too late for this to happen.

Wow, this Farmers' Market is really rocking in late May! Except for chicken, milk/cream, dried beans, rice and flour, you can get probably buy everything you want to eat for the next week. Really! This is in sharp contrast to locales where the Farmers' Market doesn't even open until June or July. The people in Marin have no idea how good they have it.

Honey, I love you

by Julie Cummins

If I had been born with teeth, they all would have been sweet. My sugar preference (read: addiction) could have started in-utero; my mom is as madly in love with sweets as I am, if not more. It certainly started early, as seen in this photo of me at 1 1/2, in the process of sucking down my first ice cream cone.

So when I took on the Eat Local Challenge, my biggest concern was how I would fare without sugar. Would I have nagging cravings? Would I be grouchy and irritable? Would life seem empty and meaningless?

Fortunately, we humans plunder a delicious sweetener from thousands of fuzzy, winged, hardworking little ladies: bees. Thank heaven and earth for honey. Honey is one product that is available locally almost anywhere. And one thing I have in common with Winnie the Pooh is my opinion on honey and how far I'll go to get it.

Living Large, and Local, for Lunch

by Holly

The days are already getting pretty darn long, here in Portland. I guess we're only about a month from Solstice, difficult though that is to believe. We've been talking about how nice the long evenings are because you can really do something with them. Often that's cooking, but it's nice to be able to take a ride, or work on bike maintenance, or make some pottery. So we've been trying out having lunch as our big meal, and having a simpler dinner. Fortunately, we work at home, so we can make lunch a bit of a production. This was a recent effort that stands out for its local flavors.