I had to think it over for a couple of weeks, though, before logging in at the Eat Local Challenge site to register. After all, it’s a big commitment: an entire month of eating ONLY food with ingredients produced within 200 miles of my front door. With three exceptions — spices, coffee and wheat flour — everything on my plate and in my glass during the month of October will come from local producers.
Between now and October 1, I’ll work on tracking down some local sources for eggs and dairy. Vegetarian since childhood, I’m spared the task of finding locally raised meat, whew! The Perfect Man canned relish and tomato sauce from our summer crop, so that will help. Plus, he already makes our mozzarella cheese and yogurt each week. (I’m telling you, I’m one very lucky girl.)
I know it won’t be easy; convenience foods and our favorite restaurants are instantly disqualified. We won’t be seeing any rice for a while, or bananas, or tea, or…oh my gosh…chocolate. But there are some positives, too: good reason to visit the artisan cheesemakers’ farm in the next county, and to network with gardeners who might like to swap veggie varieties, and to learn some new make-it-yourself skills. Stay tuned for periodic posts in October as the Eat Local Challenge gets under way…
Meanwhile, I’m still slogging along in the home stretch of an illustration job, but The Perfect Man spent the day working on a raised bed soon to be planted with onions and garlic. Last year, having neglected to order any of the tempting and exotic garlic varieties we admired in seed catalogs, we simply bought a bagful at the grocery store and broke up the cloves to plant. They turned out fine — we have a nice long row of them drying on the back porch of the art studio — but we aspire to plant an entire garlic palette this fall. Anyone have a favorite garlic to suggest? I’d love to add it to our wish list!
Good for you for taking the challenge! :)
We try to grow all the onions and garlic we need for the year every year. Dh says that he grows (he’s the gardener in the family; I’m just the weeder) both hard and soft neck garlic, including Inchelium Red and California Late (both of these are soft neck). We’ve not had to buy garlic for the past few years, having had enough to replant for the following year’s crop, so he can’t remember what exactly we have growing now.
That’s exciting!
good luck!
Shame about the bananas. Suppose the challenge goes beyond seasonal food. Think it wouldn’t be too difficult here. Usually the foods are labelled detailing the prefecture of origin and the grower. It may be the extra time to think that might be the problem.
Hi Val – Your new/old design looks nice. I’m thinking about doing the challenge too (gee, guess I’d better decide quickly!) so I’d be interested in sharing strategies/info. I think I might have to hedge on the wheat flour too because of my bread habit, and for sure I’d have to exempt my 3 year old.
At his fall vegetable gardening talk Bill Finch recommended the turban variety garlics, which are better adapted to a tropical/subtropical climate. I’ve ordered some from Seeds of Change (Siskiyou and Shantung Purple). The first year here I used garlic from the Botanical Gardens plant sale and those did great. The second year not so much, though I also planted some cloves from a head bought at the store and those did do well, counter to my expectations (isn’t most domestic garlic, like everything, grown in California?).
Wow, congrats! That’s going to be an interesting month for you, gastronomically. Have you read “This Organic Life: Confessions of a Suburban Homesteader” by nutritionist Joan Dye Gussow? She was way ahead of all the grow/eat local mass-media stuff. One thing I remember about her book was that she didn’t reject a gift of a box of precious, gifted grapefruit during their eat-local experiment. So if someone gives you bananas, will you turn them down? :)
I was going to mention Sweet Home Dairy! I guess if you can do it, so can I. Right? We’re undergoing several “renovations,” so to speak so one more shouldn’t hurt…too much.
That’s what a call a challenge!! It would be really hard for me to do the same here in Rio, since unfortunately we buy 99,9% of our stuff from groceries and supermarkets that bringss everyting from far places. It would be great to eat local food, even with the lack of chocolates and bananas (oh noy gods, my favourite friut and favourite treat! how scary!)
I’m looking forward to hearing from you in October, let us know howw things are going!
Kisses from Nydia.
PS: Guess I commented twice on your grandbaby post! Sorry for my aging problems…
Me again, Val. Just left something for you at my blog. Hope you don’t mind!
Kisses.
Is that your artwork..I enjoyed reading your site..