Waffle blogging...

This is a little bit of a stretch on "local," but it's still a fine breakfast. The waffle mix is New Hope Mills (so, it's Previously Local) with homegrown eggs - the first of our pullets from this June are laying their first eggs. We can tell they are the younger birds because the eggs are tiny - as is custom for individual chicken's first eggs. They are 27ish weeks old, which is a lot later than our Barred Rocks started laying.

The waffles were made on our wood stove - so, they're, like cooked by Local Fuel. That counts for something, right?

The strawberries are local! They've been waiting in our freezer to bring us a bit of summer in the snow. Jam would be equally delicious, I'm sure.

We also enjoyed tea from a new tea shop we found when an internet order with another company went awry. The tea comes from Germany, apparently, but the shop is locally owned.

Bill bought me a cast iron tea pot (from Japan...) for Yule. We've been using it every weekend.

Popcorn dreams

This is me moments before a life-changing handful of popcorn.

We had gone to the Traders Point Farmers market early this fateful day primarily to acquire local, healthy pork for sausage-making. Turns out that wealthy hippies like their pork pre-sausaged, so we struck out. We did meet a popcorn man and spoke with him at length about real popcorn and the amazing number of people who only eat it out of a microwave. He gave us a tip on using coconut oil instead of canola for popping and we bought some of his popcorn.

What a find, we thought! Local, organic - easy to prepare - snack to feel good about. We decided to pop it that evening. On a whim, Bill pulled out our homegrown popcorn which had failed to pop at all earlier this winter. It was massive FAIL. It was tons of finger-blistering work removing the kernels from the ears and then we had to wait ages for it to dry. This was likely a project we wouldn't complete again.

But then! Then! Our homegrown popcorn popped like gangbusters! So we opted for a side-by-side taste test with the organic corn we bought earlier in the day. The popcorn man (who also teaches a beekeeping class) had given us a sample of his product at the market and it was deelish. If our popcorn was half as good, we would feel victorious.

We grabbed a handful of our very pretty yellow and red popcorn. Anticipation grew as we popped a few kernels in our mouths. All the work...would it be worth it??

O.M.G. Our little baby homegrown popcorn was ahmazing. Light, airy, crunchy. And, was that a hit of nuttyness? Could our lovely farm and soil have added a touch of terrior in our humble snack?

Yeah. It was good enough to describe it in terms usually reserved for wine. As Bill and I fought over the remaining kernels, the farmer's market popcorn - organically and lovingly grown - wimpered a little from its bowl. I don't think I'll ever be able to eat other popcorn again.

So much for the easy to prepare snack.

Farmer's Market

Our farmer's market featured blueberries, cherries and corn from Vincennes, IN which is about 150 miles away. Not as local as it could be, but the market is new this year and features only a few vendors. We were talked into the cantaloupe. I've never particularly liked cantaloupe, but apparently they are far better if you buy them direct rather than in supermarkets. I'll let you know what we find out!

 

Bernie enjoys the corn husks:

 

Tacos, tequila, radishes

Last night we had tacos and tequila. The lamb from the tacos was local from Zen Sheep Farm within the 50 mile radius of our house. We picked it up at a Friday night farmers market at Traders Point Creamery, which is very near Bill's work. I think we'll be going back often.

Last night's festivities means we aren't really interested in eating a lot tonight. Dinner, therefore is garden radishes and french onion dip. The radishes are a bit bloated from all the rain we've been getting - plump but not very flavorful.

Defining "local"

This dairy farm is around 80 miles from our house. We stopped there two "Cowtobers" ago on a trip back from Chicago. Bill has decided they aren't "local" for us though - his definition of local is "it came out of the ground within 50 miles of our house."


The Fair Oaks cheese we bought at a supermarket last week was not counted as local and has been included in our grocery tally.

This pie was purchased from a small pie bakery within Bill's 50 mile limit. While the pie was made from scratch in the shop, we don't know where the ingredients came out of the ground (we'll ask next time we visit). We have not added this to the tally based on the technicality that it is not from a grocery store (also, we like pie and are looking for excuses to not limit our pie consumption).


These two purchases bring up the issue of source. What is our goal in eating local? Is it environmental (reducing energy used in transportation - as in yesterday's post) or is it economical - to support local small business? If we bought Fair Oaks' cheese directly from them, would that be better? It seems less efficient for us to drive 80 miles to buy 13 pounds of cheese (we like cheese as much as pie) than for a giant truck to bring gobs of cheese to our local supermarket.

We have no idea, but our quest has already gotten us thinking and talking about these things, which is a good start.

And that is a cheesy ending for this post!

Not really the beginning

With this blog post, Bill and I are sorta starting on a new food adventure...but the roots of these changes really began years ago.

Our quest (game, really) to see how long, and how well we can follow the rules posted on the right <-- was proximally spurred by a number of factors including a friend's goal to buy nothing new for 6 months, a trip to the Field Museum, dinner at Charlie Trotter's, and last year's minimally successful garden.

To get to a point where we will try limit our supermarket food spending to $50 a month, however, was actually the result of numerous small steps from banning doritos and fast food, to choosing the small package of Pillsbury cinnamon buns over the large and committing to grain-fed beef as to keep our brains functioning as long as possible.

When we first starting thinking about this quest, we were going to see how long we could make $600 last for groceries. But then we started considering the foods we could reasonably produce ourselves so as not to have to use money to purchase them and realized that we currently lack dairy animals, therefore, cheese was not on that list. This sent us into a panic.

As eating locally and seasonably is one of our goals, we decided that any local foods shouldn't count against our $600. We expect to get to know the folks at Traders Point Creamery very well.

This blog is mostly a self-imposed incentive to keep us accountable. We'll probably post our homemade food and garden adventures and information we come across on environmental and political issues. Hopefully this quest will change the way Bill and I interact with food and the blog will document those changes.

So, here the fun begins. An honest, uncensored look at our kitchen as it currently stands.

Nearly functional counter space:

Our fridge. I think the second shelf has two open jars of homemade applesauce (from very local apples). One is moldy. No idea what is in the styrofoam. Or a few of the jars in the back...though I think at least 3 of them are jelly.



Freezer, including at least 4 half-eaten and now freezer-burned containers of Ben and Jerry's.



And the pantry, where we do a bit better. Mostly ingredients and home-produced food including our last two jars of garden tomato sauce.




While this isn't the prettiest picture, we hope our new thoughtfulness about the food we buy will result in noticeable changes. Limited supplies of Ben and Jerry's will make each pint more precious. Knowing each purchase will creep us closer to the $600 limit will help us search the leftovers before buying more.

We hope this process will be fun, but challenging. Recipes, garden tips and helpful hints will be appreciated!!