www.eatlocalchallenge.com

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.

San Francisco restaurants go local

By Marc

In this week's Tablehopper newsletter, I learned about a new effort to recognize local foods in San Francisco:  the restaurants that serve it, the groceries that sell it, the farms that grow it, and the artisans that use it in their creations.  Called Eat Local San Francisco, the group's first big event is an "Eat Local Week" from September 23 to 29.  During this week, member restaurants will create daily specials that rely on the locally-grown ingredients.  As of today, nine restaurants are participating.  A slow start, to be sure, but the 23rd is still ten days away, so others may join in before Eat Local Week begins. 

The founders of Eat Local SF include such commercial interests as the San Francisco Council of District Merchants, San Francisco Small Business Commission and Open Table (an on-line reservation system), so it seems that eating local has become a marketing hook.  That's fine with me, as supporting locally-owned business is one of the main reasons to eat local. 

I hope the Eat Local SF efforts encourage restaurants and stores to use more local ingredients and to tell consumers how they use them.  Some SF restaurants have been doing this for a while.  The Slanted Door, for example, lists farm names on their menu.  The current on-line dinner menu, for example, mentions Prather Ranch beef, Allstar Organics summer squash, Star Route Farm baby spinach, Dirty Girl Farm haricots verts, and Catalan Farm sweet corn, among others.  That's useful if you have heard of the farms, but not useful if you haven't.  It would be far more informative if restaurants made maps showing where their suppliers are based, like the Highwayman pub in Lancashire, UK. 

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

Chase's Daily

by Liz

When you have a garden, it's so easy to get spoiled by all the top quality produce that you grow.  Dining out can often be disappointing because its clear many restaurants don't feel the way about fresh vegetables as you do. Chase's Daily is the exception, and the place in Belfast, Maine to head for local food on the menu.  The Chase family owns and operates a 500-acre farm in nearby Freedom, and grows a large portion of the produce they serve in this breakfast and lunch spot.  Dinners are only served on Fridays, and are top notch, as is the in-house bakery.

June is still on the cusp of the growing season in Maine, and our fresh produce choices at this time of year mostly include greens of all kinds, a "complaint" of many ELC-ers in May.  After months of living off the root cellar, jars of canned goods and the freezer, we've been delighted to see the tender greens of early summer, although after a while, we're left craving more substantial veggies.  Unfortunately for us, even peas are still a couple of weeks away!

Spreading

In this article from CNET on who's greener, Microsoft or Google, there's a gem way down near the end:

Among the [Google} campus's five cafeterias is one opened in March called Cafe 150, which serves only ingredients from farms within 150 miles of the kitchen. The trash volume in the dining room is zero and all the to-go silverware, cups and containers are compostable, said Nate Keller, Cafe 150 executive chef. The ovens are economical, using computers to set temperatures and cooking times. One local supplier delivers goods in a biodiesel-based truck and fills it up with fat from the kitchen's fryer, Keller said.

"If you transport food from Chile, or even Florida, that's a significant distance and greenhouse gases are emitted in the transportation of that food," Van Velsor said.

Yeah, it's spreading.

(And can I just add that it's about durn time mainstream environmentalism made a come-back?)

Sara Zoë is a farm groupie on the seacoast of New Hampshire and blogs between grad school and work about folkfood.
 

The Eat Local Restaurant Thank You Program

by The Editors

One of the hardest parts about participating in an Eat Local Challenge is finding restaurants cooking with ingredients from local vendors.  When I do find them, I have often wished there was a way that I could let the proprietor know that I am specifically coming to their restaurant because they support local farmers and producers.  It's good food and good service that keeps me coming back, but often the first step in the door is due to a restaurants' commitment to buying locally.

And I know that I'm not alone. 

The farm behind Farm 255

by Jamie S.

Some of you may remember my recent post about eating at Farm 255. Well, this weekend I had a fantastic opportunity: I was able to visit Full Moon Cooperative Farm, the farm that supplies much of the restaurant's produce and serves as its inspiration.

Jason Mann, agroecologist and director of Full Moon, is also one of the three owners of the restaurant. He has worked with some of the best minds in the field, including Michael Pollan. He is word-tumblingly enthusiastic and engaging, and I think that within the space of one morning, he may have assimilated me into the biodynamic agriculture borg.