Eat Local Challenge September 2007

Hello!

It's been forever, summer, busy, teething, blah blah blah.

Instead of concentrating on veganism, lately we've been inspired to become wannabe locavores. We've found that labels are not good at describing the way we eat. If asked, and someone had 10 minutes, I would describe it this way: "We're vegetarians that limit the amount of dairy and eggs we consume to local sources and humanely treated animals, trying to eat as locally as possible." Right now we are consuming local eggs from pastured chickens, and locally produced dairy products (including cheese, butter and ice cream). Not so vegan, but hey, we roll with the punches.

We are participating in the Eat Local Challenge of September 2007. Check out that link to learn more! It's really cool, and from the local eating we've been doing, it really helps you to get an idea about how food is grown and when, lets you get to know and support local farms and families and forces you to try new things.

Of course, there are exceptions and caveats to our ELC. In a nutshell, this is the Locavore pledge:

If not LOCALLY PRODUCED, then Organic.
If not ORGANIC, then Family farm.
If not FAMILY FARM, then Local business.
If not a LOCAL BUSINESS, then Fair Trade.

But there are things we know we can't get local, yet we're not (at this point) willing to live without. These include:

olive oil (and the other oils that we own), salt, certain spices (those outside of the basil, oregano, and thyme that we're growing and will eventually dry), black tea, perishable items in our fridge that would go to waste (some fake meat products), yeast, and we're going to use up our dry stores that we have and replace with local as possible (we have a source for local flour, oats, barley, dried beans, sunflower seeds, lentils), sugar.

Other caveats: we like to support our local businesses, so we will continue to buy fresh baked bread and sweet treats from our two local bakeries (that we walk to, go people power!), and we are permitting ourselves to go out to eat at a locally owned business once a week BUT we have to get there some other way than driving.

Also, we're having out of town guests starting September 21, so our challenge ends then, because, well, let's just say it'll become impossible. But we'll do what we can.

So, what have we had so far?

Saturday September 1
Breakfast: Homemade granola with yogurt (ok, not local, but in our defense we had forgotten about the challenge!)
Lunch: Heirloom tomato, basil and local cheese sandwiches on fresh rolls from a local bakery (at the farmer's market). Apples. Non-local ingredients: olive oil, salt and pepper, onion rings and an elephant ear (from the State Fair, so local business?)
Dinner: Scrambled eggs with fresh heirloom tomato salsa, garlic bread and Bibb lettuce salad with cherry tomatoes. NLI: salad dressing (trying to use up), buttery spread (also trying to use up), lime juice for salsa, salt.