Local Eating, Colonial style

After a whirlwind week with the Easy House Guests, we have become reacquainted with all the tourist attractions around here.

First stop was Mount Vernon, home and beloved farm of George Washington, to introduce our foreign guests to American history and give them an impression what life was like on a Colonial plantation, where everything necessary to life was produced on the farm by the people who lived there.

Besides all the normal farm products, they spun and wove the cloth for their clothes, made shoes, caught and salted herring , grew tobacco,made paint for the house , tanned leather - in short, they were pretty much self-sufficient. Talk about local eating - this was local living and in a very elegant style indeed.

I was impressed by Martha Washington's larder and smokehouse , which produced over 400 hams per year. Those hams were fed to 377 guests who visited George Washington in one year - it was Martha's rule that there should be a fresh ham on the table every day !

I was not able to produce a ham each day for my own guests, but I did manage to provide steamed crabs from the Chesapeake Bay, corn on the cob, and the ubiquitous tomatoes, this time in the form of a yummy salad made with green beans, lots of garlic , basil and a vinaigrette dressing. All of it either from our garden or the Chesapeake Bay right at our doorstep and totally local.

First ear of corn, ever !

The Eat Local Challenge continues .

Easy house guests

After our frantic Labor Day clean-up and beautifying spree, we are now ready for our house guests from Germany.

I gingerly tried to explain to them our month-long local eating , since they will be affected by it, and was surprised by their enthusiastic reception of the idea. They are excited by all the fresh vegetables in the garden and said they could eat ripe tomatoes for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

As a matter of fact, here's our breakfast table this morning: two kinds of local honey, home-made peach and blackberry jam, home-made bread, the bowl of vegetables, and some ham which was still on hand. Freshly laid eggs from the chickens were turned down in favor of more ripe tomatoes.

Feeding them is going to be a piece of c...,ummm,... a slice of tomato !

Some rules

Emlyn poses the question of whether to choose local or organic food when you can't have both in one. I think I would choose organic over local if I had to make a choice : why eat something of inferior quality which may be bad for you ?

But I think we each need to make up our own rules for this challenge.

Here are my rules :

1. Anything already in the pantry can be eaten, but no replacements can be bought, if they don't fall within the 150 mile radius T and I decided on.

2. If you can't eat a 100 % locally produced organic meal, at least have some ingredients that are local and organic.

3. If none of the food can be local, try to buy ethically produced food , which means organic , Fair Trade, no meat produced by huge commercial operations, etc.

4. If that's not possible, buy from a local farmer or business.

5. Last, tell your friends about why you are doing this and encourage them to think about where their food comes from and what they are supporting with their food dollars.

Does this help, Emlyn ? Let's hear the rules which you set for yourself.

Don't let the Perfect get in the way of the Good

I entered into this challenge with all good intentions but without decent prior planning you may as well forget it. I was doing ok until both R and W came down with a rockin' case of diahrrea and required the BRAT Diet. That's Bananas, Rice, Applesauce, Tapioca pudding. The only ingredient that I can source locally is apples and I don't even know what tapioca is, let alone where it comes from! I had to rely on what I had in the pantry (not much) and what I could procure quickly (not much). So since I failed miserably this weekend, I'm planning on not letting the perfect get in the way of the good. What I mean is - I'm pressing on and trying to get more and more local with every meal. Tonight I think will be an organically raised roasted chicken (not local), organic rice (not local) and salad (local and organic). What I've found, is that many locally produced foods are not organic while you can buy organically raised bananas from Costa Rica. Because I have to feed two children, ages 4 and 1, I am stuck trying to figure out what is better: Feeding them locally grown foods, or organic foods?

More local eating

Megan, I am so happy you decided to join us in the Eat Local Challenge ! It's a lot of fun and somewhat sobering , especially when you realize how much of our food either 1. comes from incredibly far away or 2. is packed or distributed by some far away place and you have no clue where it comes from or even what is in it !
As far as fruit which is ripe right now - apples, peaches, blackberries, raspberries, plums, pears , melons of every description. I'm sure there are a few more, but the above should be readily available everywhere.
Can't wait to read about what's cooking in NYC !

Yoga in the Berkshires

I'm back from a week in lovely Lenox Massachusetts teaching yoga for plus-sizes at the Kripalu center. R came with me and trained kettlebells while I led my group in postures, meditation and creative artwork about body image. The group of students was very diverse and hard-working. I just love teaching and seeing them "get it" -- that moment where their eyes light up as they discover that the postures are possible for all of us if we use props and work slowly.

I'm ready to accept the eat local challenge. I had to restock our fridge after a week of being fed delicious gourmet veggie meals up at the spa -- and it was depressing!! Our local Whole Foods is very expensive and fun to shop. However, they don't have a large selection of local food. I've found that the A and P down the street actually has more locally produced produce.

I got red potatoes from NJ, tomatoes and green peppers from NY state, eggs from Nj and chicken breast and sirloin that says it was packed in NJ - but who knows where the animals came from???? I also got two bananas - sigh - from an organic farm but in Costa Rica! Jesus. And peaches and pluots that came from California. Such a bummer. Isn't there some local fruit that is ripe now at the end of summer? Can't find it at my local supermarkets.

Also, it is not lost on me that I just burned many gallons of fossil fuel going up and down from Mass. Seems like it's not easy trying to reduce our carbon impact on the earth.

Labor Day Weekend

We really did labor this weekend mowing the pastures, clearing the garden of spent plants, mulching and composting ,getting ready for fall and winter.




T put together a new composting machine ( Finished Compost in A Mere SIX Days !!! ) It's fun to fill up the compartments to see whether it really will turn into compost that fast. The idea is to turn the drums every day - there's a handle on the right , aerating the contents and thus speeding up the decomposing process.

I was going to show pictures of all the lovely meals I had cooked for the Eat Local Challenge, but they all disappeared as soon as they hit the table. I'm beginning to wonder if the Eat Local Challenge is turning into a Butternut Squash Challenge here at chez RFD. We have a wheelbarrow full of squashes and have eaten them for every meal for days !
First I roasted cubes of peeled butternut with some butter and finished with a sprinkle of brown sugar - elegant with a roasted chicken and a green bean salad with sweet SunSugar cherry tomatoes, garlic and basil.

Next, I sauteed slices of squash in olive oil, garlic and a splash of white wine, why not ? I also cooked slices in butter and oil with garlic and then removed the squash from the pan and deglazed the pan with red wine vinegar and a little brown sugar until the latter had caramelized and poured this over the squash - divine ! This squash is terrific hot, warm or cold, even straight out of the refrigerator if you want a little snack.

I am beginning to wonder if we are sufferingfrom a vitamin A deficiency ( butternut is high in A ) or if we are simply eating seasonally as well as locally.