What remains

The challenge is over.  The sun rose this morning no differently than before, and apparently our local eating moved no mountains nor turned water into wine (though not for lack of trying.)  What I hope it did do, though, was inspire a few people somewhere to make a meaningful choice about what they put into their bodies.  I can't help but leak a little sappy inspirational talk here - I'm a mom and a teacher so it comes pretty naturally to me.  Please forgive me.

There are a lot of fad diets out there these days.  We hear all about "natural cleanses" and eating "caveman style."  Everyone wants their body to be a temple, right?  And, to continue the analogy, I guess that there are all different styles of worship.  Some religions require a sort of cleansing of the soul, others value sacrifice, and most honor tradition.  I guess I worship through simplicity and by doing so, incorporate all three aspects to some extent.  We didn't do this challenge to cleanse our bodies, or to feel as those we have sacrificed convenience and flavor for a greater cause.  We didn't do this challenge to honor the traditions of settlers who came long before us.  In the end, we did do all of those things, but none of them were the point.  The point was to see how simply we could live and by doing so, maybe affect some longterm changes in our family values and eating habits.  I think the way your family eats says a lot about you.  Now that I'm raising a child, it's even more important that I think critically about the values we are living on a daily basis.

So, what will remain now that the week is over and what will be thrown to the wayside?  I have to say, I have missed ethnic foods and flavors - cumin, curry, fish sauce, and sesame oil.  I have missed olive oil and pasta and rice.  I have also missed the option of going out to restaurants or meeting friends for a drink.  All of these things will return to our diets.  Local eating is not cheap and it is not convenient.  One would think that eating food from two miles down the road should be markedly more affordable and accessible than similar food produced two thousand miles away, but that is not the state of food in our country right now.  I'm not saying that it will ALL be thrown to the wayside.  There are some elements that we will continue in our daily diets.  We will continue to use our own sea salt and fresh herbs.  Though they are slightly more expensive, I will continue to buy local eggs and milk because the difference in quality is so notable.  And I will make the pilgrimage to the winter farmer's market to see what produce I can buy year round.  Maybe most important for our health, we will eat fewer processed foods.  I enjoyed my time in the kitchen and though I can't commit to spend 4 hours cooking every day forever, I do think it's worthwhile to make more of our own foods like bread, yogurt, and cheese.

Baby grommet seems pleased to be allowed his old foil packets of fruit puree.  I know it was healthier and even cheaper to feed him my homemade applesauce, but the convenience of handing him something that he can feed himself happily for a few minutes is unbeatable.  I think he must have missed pasta, too, since I just found him doing this:

Oh, and in case you're wondering, breakfast this morning was oatmeal for both of us.  I also had half a bagel and he had a fruit puree packet (gasp!)  

       

The End . . . or not

Tonight marks the official completion of our weeklong eat local challenge.  I have to admit, I'm feeling pretty proud of not dropping the ball after dear hubby went back to work yesterday morning.  I did down the game a bit and depend on leftovers for lunch, but that is pretty standard when I'm cooking dinners for one any other time also.

So, today's recap.  Breakfast was oatmeal, just the way I like it - swimming in a pool of milk with a pad of butter and drizzle of maple syrup on top.

Lunch was leftover chicken cacciatore, which the baby grommet enjoyed every bit as much as he did last night.

Speaking of the baby grommet, he slept much better last night.  I was even mildly confused when I woke up at 7, on my own, and didn't need to hop right into action.  I'm not used to having time to myself in the mornings, so I laid in bed reading quality literature until duty called.  He also stuck to his normal napping schedule so I'm hoping this means we are now back on track.  

The normal napping schedule meant I had some time in the afternoon to prep dinner.  I still had two chicken leg quarters left that I needed to use, so I decided to start off by browning them in some bacon grease so that they'd be ready to pop in the oven.    Meanwhile, I also peeled and cut some carrots in thirds so that I could steam and puree them.  

After some research, I found a recipe for low fat chicken and gravy that sounded good.  As usual, I had to modify the recipes quite a bit but I had most of the basics and I liked the idea of cooking the flour-dredged chicken in some milk so that the gravy made itself as it mixed with the chicken juices.  I probably shouldn't have browned the chicken first, or at least I certainly didn't need to, but in any case I combined some whole wheat flour with salt and dried thyme, then dredged the chicken in it and emptied the extra flour mixture into the bottom of the casserole dish.  I put the chicken pieces on top and then added milk until it was about a third of the way up the chicken.  I baked it all at 300 for 1 hr 25 minutes, basting the chicken with the gravy/milk three times while cooking, and whisking up the gravy and drippings each time.  

While the chicken baked, I sauteed some swiss chard with garlic, then added a bit of cider and water and let it simmer.  I served up my portion of carrot puree, covered with swiss chard and topped with a chicken quarter and gravy.  It was tasty!  

So, is this the end?  Am I saying goodbye and signing off for good?  Well that would be pretty boring and anticlimactic I think.  There are a few epilogues I want to get together, which maybe I'll have some time for once I don't feel so guilty about cooking pasta as a meal anymore.  For one, I want to think about the overall pro's and con's, and write about which parts of this challenge we plan on continuing with in our diet.  For another, I am going to break down the costs of this challenge to compare with our normal shopping.  

But for now, here's the final breakdown:

Breakfasts:

Fried eggs, bacon, and cornbread

Jonnycakes with maple syrup

Scrambled eggs with ham and roasted potatoes

Jonnycakes with blueberry syrup and bacon

Leftover apple crisp (2 mornings in a row - mmmmmm!)

Oatmeal

Lunches:

Cream of vegetable soup with salad

Ratatouille with grits

Jonnycakes with tomatillo salsa

Spicy chicken soup with corn muffins

Leftover chicken soup and ratatouille

Jonnycakes with goat's cheese and smoked bluefish, side salad

Leftover chicken cacciatore

Dinners:

Roasted chicken with root vegetables, cornbread stuffing, and sweet corn salad

Clam chowder, sweet corn salad, and oat flour biscuits

Shepherd's Pie (not 100% local, since we were guests at my in-laws, but mostly local, and definitely could have been done 100% local)

Quiche! (1:  Ham, brie, shallots, and tomatoes, 2: Bacon, goat's cheese, leaks, spinach, and tomatoes) served with beet salad and steamed green beans

Seared scallops with roasted potatoes and salad

Chicken cacciatore and spaghetti squash

Baked chicken and gravy with carrot puree and swiss chard 

Snacks:

Steamers

Melon with ham

Apple slices with brie

Corn muffins

Yogurt

Mint tea

Smoked bluefish with goat cheese

Homemade applesauce

Desserts:

Apple crisp with maple custard

Maple Ice Cream

Honey Ice Cream

Not bad, if I do say so myself.

Slow Cooking

As predicted, we had a slow kind of day.  The grommet was clearly not feeling well, but he did his best to destroy the living room, terrorize the dog, and find breakable objects, per usual.  Yesterday, he pushed his toy farmhouse against the child gate and then climbed on top of it, using it as a step, and was well on his way over the gate before we caught him.  I'm fairly certain that this is evidence of genius-level intelligence.  If anyone reading this can confirm, please email me so that I can make sure he gets into the right preschool.  Ah, I jest.

Anyway, after lunch we went to run errands so that I could replenish boring things like baby wipes and trash bags.  The outing seemed to keep baby grommet happy and occupied, but on the way home I broke a cardinal rule of parenting and let him fall asleep in the car, HALF AN HOUR BEFORE NAP TIME.  Panic, right?  I tried to transfer him into his crib but he woke up and then refused to take an afternoon nap altogether.  Foiled my dinner cooking plans?  Wrong!  I had already prepped dinner and put it on the stove before we left.

Here is the spread:

I basically made a chicken cacciatore by browning the onion, garlic, and peppers, then adding the seared chicken thighs and legs, tossed it all in our heavy stock pot, poured the tomato puree (that's what is in the suspicious/gross looking ziploc) over the top, and simmered with herbs on low all afternoon.  By the time the afternoon nap had come and gone without happening, the chicken had fallen off the bones and I diced the eggplant and added it.  I didn't end up using the pattypan squash.  

Instead of serving it with polenta, like I had originally planned, I decided to use the gorgeous spaghetti squash I had picked up at the farm, so I steamed it, shredded it, and used it as a base for the cacciatore.  I am always a little in awe of how much spaghetti squash resembles its namesake.

Here is the finished product.  I topped it with some crumbled goat cheese.  Grommet wasn't in the mood for spaghetti squash but he devoured the cacciatore.   

And, bonus - there is plenty left over for lunch tomorrow!  I also have some yogurt incubating in the crockpot set at warm right now, so that should be ready to go first thing tomorrow morning.  Yum!  

  

Taking it easy

So, it turns out, baby grommet wasn't up all night thinking about how he'd been roped into the eat local challenge unwillingly.  He was up all night because the poor little guy is sick!  I didn't even know that so much booger could come out of such a little nose.  And his cough!  He has the saddest little (big!) cough.

This all means that we were up about five times last night and on a few of those times, the only thing we could do was rock the inconsolable little guy while he wailed.  This morning we are exhausted.  To top if off, dear hubby went back to wrk this morning and will be gone for five days straight so it's just me and baby grommet now.  This calls for some simple, no-fuss cooking.

But before I get to today, let me fill you in on yesterday.  Lunch was leftovers.  We have a ton of leftovers and they're easy so it's a no brainer.  Dinner, though, was a huge hit.  Dan had dropped off some local sea scallops for dear hubby's birthday and our latest CSA share was loaded with beautiful potatoes, plus I had scored some green house sweet potatoes at another farm.  I made crispy roasted potatoes with garlic and parsley, seared scallops w shallots and fresh herbs, and a green salad.  Yummmmmmm.

This morning I enjoyed the last of the apple crisp with custard and baby grommet gobbled up some oatmeal.

For lunch I did our go-to easy meal - jonnycakes, this time topped with goat's cheese and smoked bluefish, also courtesy of Dan.  

I had a side of green salad and baby grommet had the last of Thursday's spicy chicken soup (good for his cold!)  It was the first time I'd given him soup and he seemed to really like it.  He is also having some weak mint tea brewed from mint in our garden.    

Right now I'm defrosting some chicken thighs and drumsticks from Tendercrop, and some tomatoes from our garden that I blanched, peeled, and froze last week.  I'm going to throw it in the crockpot with some other veggies and let it all stew for a while, then serve it with some creamy polenta.  A slow cooked meal for a slow kind of day.

 

The feast to end all feasts . . . .

And I was so busy that I didn't even get any pictures of it.  I know, I know - you call my bluff right?  Well, there were witnesses so I can refer you to them if you still doubt me.

Lunch yesterday was a warm and spicy chicken soup.  I roasted the cracked up chicken carcass (mmmm marrow) from Monday night's dinner under high heat in the oven, with some herbs.  It made the whole house smell like fried chicken and released all the juices from the bones.  I then simmered it in just enough water to cover it, drained it, and chilled so I could skim the fat off the top.

Then I sauteed 1/2 red onion, 3 cloves minced garlic, 1/2 cup diced celery, 1 small hot pepper, and 1 baby eggplant.  Once tender, I added the broth and 2 chopped turnips, 1 chopped carrot, and 2 chopped potatoes and simmered until the everything was cooked through.  I also made corn muffins with some modifications to this recipe.   I replaced the vegetable oil with bacon grease (kind of negates the "vegan" recipe title, huh?), eliminated baking soda, and used all cornmeal instead of half flour.  Replaced the agave nectar with maple syrup and the soymilk with regular milk.  They were super moist and a little puffier than my last batch.  Yum.

We went on a family grocery sojourn yesterday afternoon.  Remember, we can't just hop in the car and do the one-stop shopping trip at Market Basket, but this was ok with us yesterday since baby grommet is still struggling to sleep (he has a cold now) and a long nap in the car was just what he needed.  So first we headed to the dairy at Appleton Farms to pick up milk, cream, and beef, but they were out of beef which totally threw my birthday dinner plans through a loop (more on that later).  Next we picked up our CSA share (yay for Thursdays!) which consisted of potatoes (phew, I had been running low), swiss chard, broccoli, spinach, onions, beets, and tomatoes.  As I racked my brain about dinner plans, I asked dear hubby if he thought we should head back to Marini's to find some meat.  We had just come from that direction, though, so instead he suggested we try Apple Street Farm.  I had never been to that one and ended up staying in the car with sleeping grommet, but dear hubby said their pork looked amazing, though it was only available to CSA members.  Sigh.  We were able to score some local whole wheat flour there, though, which is a huge find for us, and we picked up some eggs since the roadside cooler still wasn't out.  Looking at our haul, I conceptualized the dinner plan with dear hubby's favorite meal in mind:  QUICHE.

At home, first I prepped the pie crusts by slicing butter into the flour we'd just scored.  I lightly salted it and pressed it into two pie pans, then baked at 350 for about 15 minutes.  Meanwhile, I peeled, cored, and diced 4 apples and 2 pears, then tossed them with maple syrup and put them in a 9x13 pan.  I made a crumble topping by whirring oats, flour, butter, and maple sugar candy together in the food processor, then crumbled over the fruit.  This went into the oven when the quiche crusts came out, and cooked for about 45 minutes.  I wanted to make maple ice cream so I combined 2 cups milk with 2 cups heavy cream and heated until steaming in a saucepan.  While that heated, I creamed together 4 egg yolks with 1/3 cup maple syrup and a pinch of salt.  Once the milk was steaming, I took it off the heat and slowly added the egg mixture, whisking constantly to make sure the eggs didn't cook.  The whole thing got returned to the heat and stirred until it thicken enough to coat the spoon, then aside to cool completely.

Next was frying the bacon for quiche, then sauteing leaks and shallots.  I put crumbled bacon on the bottom of one pie crust, topped with crumbled goat's cheese, fried leaks, and sauteed spinach.  The other quiche had diced ham, brie, and fried shallots.  I poured 4 whole eggs and 2 egg whites whisked with some milk into each pie crust and laid sliced tomatoes on top.  Both baked at 350 for about 35 minutes.

Finally, I steamed some green beans and made a quick salad with romaine, cucumbers, green onions, and beets, dressed with a mixture of yogurt, cider, and chopped basil (better than it sounds, I promise).

Of course, after dinner I discovered that the freezer had partially defrosted so the ice cream machine was not operable.  This nixed the maple ice cream, but instead I heated it back up and ladled it over bowls of apple crisp as a warm custard.

Delicious!  I'll update with some pictures of yesterday's lunch and we still have leftover crumble so I can get some pictures of that too.

Breakfast this morning was leftover apple crumble and corn muffins.

CHEATERS!

Ok, we cheated.  This is my confession.  Forgive us.

But first, check out the lunch that Dan and I ended up making yesterday.  Jonnycakes with a fresh salsa of tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, and tomatillos, topped with a sprinkle of sea salt.  Delicious.

But then there was the wine tasting.  Mmmmmm, the wine tasting.  We headed up to Mill River Winery around 4:30, since they close at 6.  We arrived just before five to find a really cozy, semi-rustic and totally inviting tasting room attached to a small gourmet food-themed gift shop.  There are old exposed beams original to the building, and a cool bar top made from rough cut lumber.  In the gift shop, they carry some local products and some imported things like olive oils and vinegars.  Everything looked good, and we decided to pick up some local cheese from them to enjoy while we sampled the wine.  Chris in the tasting room was friendly and knowledgeable, guiding us through a few different tastes.  They have only just planted their own vines this season, so they are not yet producing their own grapes and mostly still use grapes from California.  Our first cheat!  But oh so worth it.  We agreed that our favorite was the barrel-aged Chardonnay, and I don't even like chardonnays so that's saying something!  I could have spent an entire afternoon relaxing in the tasting room.  Oh, and Chris also gave us some crackers to accompany our cheese.  Our second cheat!  All in all though, we were happy to be patrons at a local place doing something relatively new around here, and we think they're going to be pretty successful.  I'm sure we'll be back before long, and you can bet that once they get their local grapes up and going, we'll be their best customers!

Next, it was off to my in-laws' house to have a birthday dinner for dear hubby.  We weren't about to impose our crazy hippy diet on the extended family, so we were prepared for anything but as it turns out, it was a mostly local meal!  My mother in law appreciates quality local food so she had made a shepherd's pie using local meat and potatoes.  We also had local green beans on the side and a caprese salad that was all homegrown with the exception of the mozzarella.  It was all delicious and serves as another example of a menu that could be done entirely on local foods.  Dessert was a different story with frozen homemade raspberry mousse and lemon cake.  Another cheat!  But again, what could we do other than indulge??

This morning we are back to business, though, and I am regretting not running the errands I should have run yesterday (might have something to do with the wine tasting . . . . )  One small hassle of local eating that will take some getting used to is that you cannot just run out and pick up a random grocery here or there.  We are all out of eggs and almost out of butter and milk.  Luckily, dear hubby's mother randomly gifted us some more local bacon last night which totally saved me for the actual birthday breakfast this morning.  Dear hubby wanted eggs and drove twice to the house where we've sourced out good farm eggs at a great price ($2.50/doz!!) but they had not yet put the cooler out by the road.  I still managed to pull off a great birthday breakfast, I think.

Local bacon with jonnycakes and blueberry syrup.  I had frozen the blueberries early in the summer so in that regard I was fortunate.  I mixed them with a little local maple syrup and heated until they were plump and ready to burst.  

Jonnycakes are seriously versatile.  I'm sure I'll get sick of them soon, but I'm also getting better at cooking them, frying them in bacon fat until the outside has a satisfying crunch and the inside is soft but not mushy.  

Not to be left out, little grommet enjoyed a few cheats of his own.  At playgroup yesterday they handed out a snack of little graham cracker bunnies and, not wanting to be that weirdo mom who imposes bizarre diets on her infant, I let him indulge.  He also had a banana at playgroup earlier in the week.  This morning, though, he was back it right along side us, enjoying a jonnycake, bacon, and plenty of homemade applesauce.

On today's lunch menu is chicken soup made with stock made from Monday night's roasted chicken.  Perfect for a fall day.  Tonight will be a surf n turf celebration for dear hubby's birthday.  

Veggies ready to go into our chicken soup:

And, the finished product:

The broth was super dark and rich from cracking open the bones and roasting them in a hot oven.

Clams

For dinner we had steamers, clam chowder, corn salad, and biscuits.  I learned a few things along the way, too.  First off, there are two kinds of clams (well, there are many, many kinds of clams, but there are two common around us - ) sea clams and soft shells.  Sea clams are big and tougher.  They are commonly chopped up in chowders or into strips, deep fried, and served as fried clam strips.  Soft shells are the more delicate ones commonly used in steamers.  Or at least this is what I've been told . . . feel free to correct me.

Anyway, here are the steamers, which we ate as an appetizer while cooking everything else:

 And here are the sea clams being processed and then ready to go into the chowder:

Finally, here's dinner.  The chowder was a little different since we didn't have the right flour to make a roux and thicken it up.  Also it had some random veggies and spices added for flavor.  It was delicious though.  The biscuits were a trial with oat flour that I made by grinding baby grommet's oats in the spice blender.  It worked alright, but as you can see they ended up flat like cookies rather than fluffy like biscuits.  That's because we don't have any baking powder or baking soda.  I did read somewhere, though, that ground deer antler, also known as hartshorn, can be used to leaven breads.  Woah, bet you didn't know that already!  The biscuits were good and rich due to the butter and milk, and the oat flour tasted hearty but a bit coarse.  It's a start though!

We finished off the meal with some homemade maple ice cream which I didn't get to photograph because it was melting too quickly!

This morning was scrambled eggs with diced ham and roasted potatoes with pepper and onions.  Pretty simple, pretty tasty.  

Leftovers for lunch today, and we're off to my in-laws tonight to celebrate dear hubby's birthday, which is tomorrow, so no dinner cooking for me tonight!  Instead, we're going wine tasting this afternoon!

Ratatouille!!

When my husband and I were living on a sailboat and running study abroad programs for high school and college students, everyone on the boat took turns cooking.  My signature meal to cook was ratatouille.  It was perfect for many reasons.  First, it filled what I sometimes viewed as a gap in our diet onboard by providing us with so many vegetables.  Second, it met every dietary preference we'd seen onboard: vegetarian, gluten-free, and dairy-free.  Third, it's a one-pot meal.  I usually served it with a side of rice and parmesan, but it was fine on its own, too.

So when I surveyed our garden after breakfast and found it overflowing with eggplants, I decided on ratatouille for lunch.  I served it over grits and topped it with goat's cheese.  Mmmmm good.

Here's what I put in it - this is recipe is by no means precise and is completely driven by what was available.

1 diced shallot
3 cloves minced garlic
2 small bell peppers
2 small eggplants, diced w skin on
7 diced tomatoes
1 diced summer squash

I sauteed the shallot, garlic, eggplant, bell pepper, and squash in a bit of (yup, you guessed it- ) bacon grease.  Next added the tomatoes and let the mixture simmer down.  Added a pinch of sea salt and dried herbs.

The grommet had some honeydew melon and some ham from Tendercrop Farm, but what he really enjoyed was the grits.  He LOVED the grits.

And you know what's for dinner? Fresh steamers, clam chowder, and salad - plus, I'm off to pick up some more hard cider.

Jonnycakes!

The little grommet did not sleep well last night.  He was up often and inconsolable.  The only thing that would finally got him back to sleep was a little local eating of his own . . . if you catch my drift.  But then he'd be up again and crying.  Being a first-time mom, I of course assume I've done something wrong, or apply adult emotions to him and draw the conclusion that he resents having no say in the eating local challenge.  Realistically though, I think he is just teething.

Anyway, I only mention this because when we got up this morning (the time we got up at 7, I mean - not the time we got up at 1 or 3 . . . ) I wanted something quick and easy for breakfast.  I used up most of the yogurt yesterday so that couldn't happen, and I didn't want to do boiled eggs because I think at the time I thought that would waste too many eggs, but now this reasoning seems ridiculous and I wish I had.

Instead, I made jonnycakes.  

1 c. cornmeal

Pinch of salt

1 c. boiling water

1/2 cup milk

Fry like pancakes in bacon grease or butter.  Serve with butter and maple syrup.  

They were good but they take a long time to cook and the grommet was still fussy so I had a steady stream of jonnycakes flowing his way, and minimal cakes for myself.  In fact, by the time I'd cooked three jonnycakes, grommet had eaten two, plus two slices of honeydew melon.  So I ate while I cooked and had three with maple syrup.

Oh, and in case you're wondering why I was only feeding myself, dear hubby and Dan took the skiff out first thing to catch the low tide and dig clams.  Actually, Dan sat in the boat and drank his tea while hubby dug.  It's not that Dan is lazy, though; he just doesn't have a clamming license so his spectator status is a legal necessity.  

The guys are excited to make some clam chowder later today.  I have no clue what I'll whip up for lunch.  Maybe some polenta and pasta sauce.  It's supposed to rain.  

Dinner was good

Cornbread Stuffing - I made this up as I went so it's a work in progress, but I have to say it was good!

2 slices bacon
1/2 c. red onion, diced
1/2 c. celery, diced
1 c. tart apple, diced
2 c. cubed cornbread
1/4 c. milk
Chopped fresh herbs
Sea salt

Fry bacon until crispy.  Set aside to drain and reserve grease.  Fry onion, celery, and apple until tender in 1 tbs bacon grease.  In a bowl, toss together cornbread and sauteed vegetables with apple.  Add milk, fresh herbs (I used thyme and oregano because that's what I had) crumbled bacon slices, and a pinch of sea salt.  Bake in chicken.

I prepped the chicken with some bacon grease and a simple rub of sea salt, thyme, and oregano.  I added chopped potatoes, turnips, garlic, pearl onions, and carrots to the pan and salted these.  I roasted the whole thing for 1 hr at 375 then 20 minutes at 300.

Dan made a salad with grilled corn, chopped kale, basil, cherry tomatoes, and feta cheese with a tiny bit of leftover dressing from lunch.  The whole meal was awesome.

Day 1 Food

You may hereby disregard my earlier post regarding this morning's potential frost.  It did indeed warm up quite nicely.  I was a little thrown off, since I was planning that giant salad for lunch and then reconsidered.  Adding to my confusion, dear hubby and our friend Dan took our skiff out this morning to check and bait the lobster traps, and go surfing.  I thought they'd be pretty chilly after spending a few hours on and then in the water, so I wanted to make some lunch that would warm them up.  I started making a big cream of vegetable soup with ham.  Not to brag or anything, but it was a pretty gorgeous spread.

As luck would have it, as I prepped my soup and got the stock simmering, the sun continued to do its work and before long it was 75 degrees outside.  I should know the way it works around here by now. . .   Oh well, I decided to make a quick side salad of romaine, cucumbers, and tomatoes.  The challenge without any oil or vinegar was the dressing.  I've seen yogurt-based dressings in the grocery store so I minced some garlic and shallots, finely chopped some fresh basil, and mixed it with my homemade yogurt and sea salt.  It was still a bit thick, though, so I added a splash of cider and whisked it all up.

The guys returned from their boat ride and announced that the engine had been acting up and they hadn't been able to do both surfing and lobstering.  I'll give you one guess at which activity they chose . . .   Don't hold your breath for lobsters around here, but oh well - believe it or not, we get sick of them during the summer when they're coming out of the traps like water all summer.

We topped the soup with diced ham, chopped parsley, and a spoonful of goat's cheese.  

There are two things that I've figured out in our first day.  First, eating locally produces a lot less waste.  I have been filling our compost bin like crazy, but the only things I've thrown in the trash so far are the plastic bag that the chicken came in, and the paper towels I drained the bacon on.  Second, until we have our staples all sorted out, eating locally takes a lot of time.  Breakfast was a fairly quick prep since I made the cornbread yesterday, but the eggs and bacon created more dishes than we'd typically be doing on a Monday morning.  A normal lunch for us would be sandwiches or salad, but without any wheat we don't have flour to bake bread.  I could grind the oats down into flour, but they weren't cheap and remember, baby grommet loves his oatmeal.  So, making a soup and salad dressing from scratch probably took about an hour, as opposed to the fifteen minutes of throwing a sandwich together.  

We have our friends Dan and Ashley over for dinner tonight, and Dan is an awesome and generous chef so he is taking care of the veggies tonight, but I spent some time making a cornbread stuffing (I'll post the recipe later, it tasted awesome) and prepping a whole chicken to roast with root vegetables.  I'm lucky that we have our bacon fat, sea salt, cornbread, and fresh herbs all ready to go because that helps.  Dinner's currently in the oven and smelling great.  

 I didn't have any twine for binding up the chicken so I had to use the ridiculous skewer method but it works.  And, oh yeah - the honey ice cream came out awesome.

And so it begins

It is cold this morning.  Granted, this comes after months of humid, sticky heat and my body has likely sweated its way into a state of expectation wherein I wake up every morning fully prepared to spend the day seeking shade and cool, precious air conditioning.  So, of course, when I'm overheating and thinking about food, I think fruit, salads, and cereal.

Well, go figure, when I woke up this morning it was 42 degrees out, so there goes my plan of enjoying a bowl of cornflakes with the last of the honeydew melon harvest.  Not what I want when I'm checking to see if there's frost on the tomatoes.  A little dramatic, yes, but point taken.  The menu is out the window already.

Breakfast this morning was cornbread with butter, fried eggs, and bacon all served with a side of cider (slightly fizzy because in my naivety I didn't realize that a week in the fridge was a little long for fresh-pressed, unpasteurized cider) and coffee (not local, our guilty pleasure).  It was good, very good even.

Our little grommet seemed to enjoy the cornbread and a bit of egg, then spent the rest of breakfast time siphoning homemade applesauce through his teeth.

I think dear hubby was a little surprised when he sat grommet down in the high chair and reached into the cabinet for some rice puffs only to have me verbally slap his hand away.

"Not local."

"He's eating local too?" Quizzical expression given - maybe mommy is taking this pioneer lady thing a step too far?  We'll see, but I didn't make 32 oz of homemade applesauce for nothing . . . .

We saved the bacon fat for cooking with later.  I had planned a big salad with potatoes, boiled eggs, and bacon bits for lunch and I'm thinking it will warm up enough by then to make this feasible.  Only problem being, I hadn't thought much about salad dressing and I don't think bacon grease salad dressing sounds very good.  I do have some of the yogurt I made a few days ago, so here's hoping I can work some magic with that.

In any case, the first meal is over, the family is warm and happy.  Only complaint so far - this eating local thing sure seems to create a lot of dirty dishes.

Preparations

I was excited about eating locally, but I was concerned about the costs as well.  It had long seemed absurd to me that eating food grown and produced down the road could cost so much more than eating something grown and packaged (usually excessively) thousands of miles away.  So as I considered our week of local eating, budget was a necessary concern for me.

I wanted nothing to go to waste, so I got to work looking at recipes and menu plans that would allow me to fully utilize the ingredients we purchased.  In order to be effective at this, I needed to source out what food was available locally, and I needed to do some trial runs of new recipes.  

I made trips to our local orchard shop and found local honey, cider, fresh apples and peaches, and fruit wine.  I visited a farm stand and found fresh corn, garlic, shallots, and onions.  Another farm had squash, carrots, lettuce, chicken, bacon, ham, and even a late season harvest of honey dew melons.  I was also able to buy strawberries and blueberries earlier in the season that I had frozen for later use.  From our CSA we had potatoes, leeks, celery, parsley, turnips, green beans, tomatoes, and peppers.  And growing in our own backyard there were tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, squash, cucumbers, oregano, basil, and thyme.  Then there was the local dairy with milk, cream, some cheeses, and butter.  And though many, many farms offered local eggs, we bought ours from a cooler on the side of the road with a handwritten sign reading "Eggs: $2.50/doz".  

The most difficult thing to source was grain, but after some research we were able to find both cornmeal and oats.  The oats were from admittedly further afield, but with a baby at home who could subsist almost entirely on oatmeal, this was a necessity for us.  

So knowing what I could get, I began to sample recipes.  I made cornbread and johnnycakes.  I made eggplant fritters (though I had to alter this recipe quite a bit to keep things local), honey ice cream, and ricotta cheese (though I used vinegar instead of lemon juice, and will need to find a local vinegar to use next week.)  

The cheese was easier than I expected.  Once it's heated and you add the acid to curdle it, you just wrap it in cheesecloth and allow it to drain:

I let it sit about half an hour, squeezing gently periodically:

And at the end I got from about four cups of milk, 2 cups of ricotta, and a lot of whey.  I wasn't sure what to do with the whey, though I am sure that there are probably tons of healthy uses for it and that there are plenty of people out there who will cringe when they hear that though I had every intention of putting it to good use, in the end I eventually fed it to the dog.  Hey, I'm sure the hound would argue that qualifies as "good use."

I also made yogurt and corn flakes.  More on those later but suffice it to say, both were relatively easy and pretty tasty too.  I made pasta sauce and polenta.  I blanched, peeled, and froze fifteen tomatoes from our garden for later use.  

We are almost ready. 

The fat

I routinely drive by fields of sunflowers around here.  Of course, when it came time to actually think of where I had seen these fields, I couldn’t remember a single one specifically, but I know they are everywhere.  

This is why it came as a surprise to me when I couldn’t find local cooking oil.  I knew we’d have butter, and I knew we’d have bacon grease, but what about something lighter?  Certainly there are not olive trees around here, but some kind of vegetable oil?  Something for dressing my salad? Aha - I knew what I could get - sunflower oil!   

Turns out, no I couldn’t.  I found two different places doing it in Maine (see here and here) but none widely distributed, and certainly nothing within a few hundred miles.  This was one thing we’d have to do without for the week. 

Obstacles

It was really only moments after we came up with the idea that we started to brainstorm what we could and couldn’t source locally.  There were two primary obstacles we thought of immediately.  The first, insurmountable, and the second, manageable.  The first was of course coffee.  As parents of an 11-month old, we need our coffee.  Sometimes the thought of morning coffee is very nearly the only reason I am able to drag myself out of bed after a wakeful night.  The steaming mug, the rich cream, the caffeine slowly sinking in - to me, it’s a package deal.  This was non-negotiable for everyone in the room so we agreed that this would be our “cheat,” our “luxury item,” our “if-I-were-stuck-on-an-island-and-could-only-have-one-thing” pick.  So that left beer.  Luckily for us, there is an orchard down the road that now makes hard cider and a variety of other fruit wines.  We have been known to sample these libations from time to time, and have not been disappointed, though I’m sure that if we enjoyed them to excess the hangover would be hell.  There is also a new vineyard that I pass when I drive our grommet, Sebastian, to playgroup.  They have a tasting room and I’ve been meaning to stop in and give them a try. 

So, done and dusted right?  We agreed on dates for the challenge that gave us about 3 weeks to plan and prepare.  We wanted to do it right - nothing aside from coffee that wasn’t local.  Though I’m sure I could have waited until the day before and just gone to the farmer’s market and made a series of stir-fries and salads, I wanted to see how well we could eat locally.  I wanted to make meals that felt normal, even better than normal, so that we would not resent the challenge, but embrace it.  I wanted to sample recipes and cooking techniques ahead of time, and I wanted to have a rough menu plan in place so that I could shop more purposefully.  I had a lot of work to do to prepare.     

Imagine my surprise when, two days before Challenge Day 1, dear hubby called me and asked very seriously, “What about beer?”  At the time of this call, I was driving with child and dog in tow to the local farm to buy some bacon and chicken.  

“What about beer?”  I echoed.  

“Well, are you really serious?  You expect me to not drink beer on my birthday?”  Oh . . . have I not mentioned yet that dear hubby’s birthday falls on day 4 of our challenge?  Right, well it does.

“Yes, that is what we talked about,” I told him.  

“Also, my parents invited us over for dinner for my birthday,” he ventured.  

Hm, now I was stuck.  We couldn’t decline because of “some silly challenge” so I conceded this one.  “Ok, we can just extend it for another day on the other end,” I agreed.  

“But the beer is out?”

At this point I proceeded in the tradition of wives for generations, and told my dear hubby that of course he could drink whatever he wanted whenever he wanted, but said it in the way that wives sometimes do where it’s clear that he’d better not dare.  

**Update:  Since the above conversation, dear hubby has sent me the following links to locally brewed beer made from locally grown hops.  You can bet he is breathing a sigh of relief.

http://www.capeannbrewing.com/fishermans-home-port-pale-ale/

http://throwbackbrewery.com/

  

The Challenge

The challenge is nothing new, really.  I read about it years ago, when we were living on a sailboat and I had lots of time after dark when there was nothing better to do than imagine the stories of people who were surrounded by land.  The story is Barbara Kingsolver’s memoir of eating locally for a year.  It stuck with me.

Years later, when we moved ashore to a part of the country surrounded with farms but blessed by proximity to the sea, we were mindful of the choices we made about food.  We joined a CSA, we got lobstering, fishing, and clamming licenses, and we sourced local meat and eggs.  But our forays into local eating were just convenient.  When I took time off work after the birth of our first son, our budget was tight and we found ourselves eating blocks of plasticky orange cheese and super market strawberries imported from Mexico, because the same products produced down the road would have doubled the cost.  

The stars started to align for us this summer.  First, our local farm began to sell its own milk in thick glass bottles.  There iss something so nostalgic to me about bringing home a bottle of cold milk with thick cream on top.  Though I’ve never lived in a time when this was the norm, somehow it seems like the return to a simpler, by-gone era.  Next, our close friends have just moved back from California and begun to garden some of our backyard beds for us.  He took culinary classes and works at the local farm on occasion, and he arrived at our house with eggplant, squash, cucumber, and pepper seedlings that he planted in rich, thick soil.  Already, our own tomatoes and peppers were flowering so soon we had an abundance of vegetables that I struggled to use before they fell into the soil from which they’d come.  It’s also boating season so we do our best to bring home fish, lobsters, or clams every time we go out on the water, but with baby in tow hauling and baiting lobster traps is a whole new ball game.  Finally, our CSA is in full swing, so I am getting creative to find uses for all that we bring home.  I make pesto using carrot greens and pumpkin seeds.  I puree summer squash to thicken marinara sauce and fry fritters using the oversized zucchinis that hide until they outgrow their shady overhangs.  

It wasn’t long until we were counting what wasn’t local in our meals instead of what was.  Then, one humid evening we went for a boat ride - the five of us - my husband and me, our son, and our friends Dan and Ashley, the ones who had just returned from California.  Dan had arrived at the house with his signature bag of fresh produce and as we walked along the sand bars at low tide we stumbled on a clam bed.  We didn’t even need to dig, but instead just pulled the clams so numerous that the handfuls that came up without clams were few and far between.  At home, we steamed the clams and then chopped them into a frying pan with butter and garlic.  Meanwhile, a pot of pasta simmered and in the wok, Dan worked magic with baby eggplants, summer squash, heirloom tomatoes, and hot peppers.  We tossed it all together with fresh chopped basil and goat cheese.  

As the beer poured, we speculated about how much of our meal had come from further than 100 miles.  Certainly the flour used to make the pasta, we concluded.  And the beer, of course.  But everything else we had or could have sourced locally.  And so the challenge was born.  Though Barbara Kingsolver and her family had done a year, we are starting on a smaller scale.  We will eat locally for a week and see how far we can take it.  The idea is not to deprive ourselves, but rather to become more creative with what we have.  The idea is to see how hard, how rewarding, and how delicious it will be.