Day 15!

We made it!

The local eating adventure is winding to a close, but judging by the pile of veggies in our fridge, and impending CSA pick up today, we'll continue to eat pretty locally. I'd say we were much closer to Michael Pollan's "eat food. mostly vegetables." these past few weeks than we generally are.

We have decided to try to continue to focus our meat purchases on those of the extremely local variety. Buying from a farmer you can actually talk to, and ask about their farming practices, it optimal, but when that's not possible we'll focus on sourcing from sustainable farms from local businesses. Because it's definitely more expensive to buy meat of the sustainable variety, we will limit our meals cooked with meat to two per week if possible. This will be an experiment of sorts for a while, we'll see how it goes.

The cost breakdown of eating this lcoally has been a frequent question- so I'll attempt to break it down. Over the past 2 weeks we have definitely spent more on groceries, and spent more at the farmers markets. But, we weren't eating out, something we generally do at least once if not twice per week. So the overall total we spent on food was probably slightly less than normal. Paying the local premium also meant we were getting higher quality products in quite a few cases. The milk we were drinking for instance was Amazingly Good, but $4.49 for a glass jug (1/2 gallon?), and we normally spend $3 for a 1/2 gallon of organic milk. The difference in quality was very apparent and it cost more (and required an extra car trip to pick up in this case- it's bikeable if we decide to go that route in the future we'll have to bike there...). (Once you factor in that we weren't eating cereal and were going through half as much milk each week, it's a wash though I suppose on cost.)

Now, I am going to celebrate with a much deserved latte (don't worry from a local business that only roasts fair trade beans :-) )

Nearing the Finish

Day 13:
Breakfast--bacon & eggs (from 4 miles away-- thanks Sarah & Patrick!!)
Lunch- Veggie stew, leftover salmon, dried plums, apple
Snack- Roasted Hazelnuts & cheese
Dinner- tons of beets, sautéed Italian peppers & onions, potatoes
And more cider

Day 14:
Breakfast- eggs.
Lunch- leftovers from last night, an apple, more cheese, and a corn meal muffin with honey
Dinner- we’re going out to a local restaurant that bases their menu on what’s in their CSA for the week. They have a good wine selection too it sounds like, time to celebrate our success at eating uber-locally!

We are looking forward to integrating the things we’ve learned the past 2 weeks into our “normal lives”—the main difference being that without making our eating the primary focus, we just don’t have the time to cook quite this much (and we love to cook!). Actually, we don’t have the time to do this many dishes either! So back to reality, but not without having located local dairy and meat option—our main intentions for the EcoChallenge were definitely accomplished.

Lately

Here's what we've been eating lately:
-dried apples (thank you Sarah and Patrick!!)
-pumpkin seeds, roasted
-dried plums, otherwise known as prunes I suppose
-salmon (our best local meal yet! thanks Kelly & Ross!!)
-more dried tomatoes
-veggie stew, this one's not as good as the last, and I made more. oops.
-roasted pears- my new favorite dessert!
-potatoes
-cider. yum.

And, 3 Oreos. Gasp. We went to our blood donation appointment last night, and I didn't think our diet would have any effect on giving blood. But, I was wrong. I almost passed out, and realized that the volunteers there weren't going to let me leave in that state. Strangely, since it's staffed entirely by nurses, they only have junk food available as post-donating snacks. So 3 Oreos was the key to my release from the Red Cross, and I'd be lying if I said they weren't delicious!

Just 2 more days to go.

Fresh Fish & Farmers Market Finds

It's a good day in the world of these 2 local eaters! We have fresh fish (thanks Ross & Kelly!!) in the fridge along with a healthy supply of new veggies & some bacon, and italian sausages. Another veggie stew is brewing in the crockpot, so we'll have some lunch soup. Oh-- AND we got apple cider-- a local beverage! Finally! Hopefully I won't finish the entire bottle today...

Saturday & Sunday

Getting close to the home stretch-- and starting to reflect on the lessons learned. Like:
1) corn meal pancakes are not that great.
2) coffee is really delicious. and very not local.
3) it's hard to eat anything quickly that's super local, except for cheese by the slice and hard boiled eggs.
4) it's easy to get sick of sliced cheese and hard boiled eggs.
5) there are plenty of creative purchasing options for local food in this area-- CSAs for not just produce but eggs, dairy and meat-- and we'll surely explore some beyond the produce in the near future
6) eating THIS locally isn't truly sustainable, because we have to make car trips to seek out the uber-local options (car trips we wouldn't normally make since our normal grocery stores are both within one mile, and easily walkable and bike-able
7) eating locally will definitely be something that sticks with us-- between the garden and csa we're focused in that direction anyway

What we're eating this weekend:
Saturday:
Breakfast--cornmeal pancakes with berry preserves. yuck (the pancakes not the preserves...)
Lunch-- scrambled eggs with spinach and 1/2 a leftover hamburger (meat from 39 miles away)
Dinner-- salad, leftover veggie stew, hard boiled egg, pears

Sunday:
Breakfast--CHANTRELLE and spinach omelette. OMG SO GOOD. oven roasted potatoes (with a "condiment exception", all natural ketchup
Lunch & Dinner-- yet to be determined, but we're off to explore the foodie farmer's market in town this afternoon, so likely something yummy, and more cheese.

Day 8?

I think it's day 8?
So last night we made pizza, which took about 3.5 hours from start to finish no joke--talk about unsustainably time consuming... I was starving and had a low blood sugar melt down somewhere around 8:45pm. I. can't. eat. dinner. at. 9. pm. It's really that simple. But the pizza was delicious and we made extra foccacia bread which we're devouring today.

Back on the egg train now that it's the weekend again... Is a lack of creativity or lack of other options driving the heavy egg consumption? not sure, but fried eggs are delicious with broiled fresh tomatoes! try it!

Today's Menu:
Breakfast- fried eggs on foccacia bread
Lunch- baked pear, kale chips, brie, some more foccacia bread
Dinner- either the soup that's brewing in the crockpot or hamburgers. Or both.

One Week Down, One Week to Go

Breakfast-- 2 more of those corn muffins with honey
Lunch-- hazelnuts, green beans from the CSA, a hardboiled egg. (no wonder I am starving right now, that is not enough lunch!)
Dinner-- frittata with whatever veggies we get in the CSA

We've made it through week one! I need to go back to the farm to get more milk and yogurt tomorrow, and stock up on fruits.

Days 5 & 6

It will be pretty easy to do these two days together, because we ate pretty much the same things both days:
Breakfasts--"corn muffins", in "quotes" because they weren't the light fluffy corn muffins one imagines-- we are grinding the flour with our blender, to avoid buying a grain mill (we don't need another thing in our kitchen, and it is not really in the spirit of the ecochallenge to buy new stuff...) so it's not as fine as it should be. Hence the heavier bread products.
Lunch-- smorgasbord of things including a hard boiled egg, cheese, hazelnuts, apple, pear, and some leftovers-- Monday it was leftover chicken, Tuesday leftover fried green tomatoes
Dinners-- Monday: veggie soup (broccoli, spinach, and some other veggies hanging out in the kitchen). Mark tried to make Ukrainian dumplings to put in the soup, but the flour texture was off, so I ate around those... Tuesday-- pork sausages from a nearby farm, cooked with asian pears, and a salad with pears and local brie.

We spent much of the last few nights preparing or cleaning up after preparing food-- and while we cook a lot normally, the extra hours of food prep and cleanup are definitely noticeable! The time consuming nature of the locavore diet has definitely got me thinking about what aspects of the challenge we can retain and which pieces are unsustainable in the long term.

Time to stop typing since my fingers are killing me from de-shelling fava beans for 2 hours last night...

Day 4

At least I am not dying for a candy bar right now, like I was last night... but today was the first day we've been out and about and needed to find something to eat. Even at a Co-op grocery store in a town with a hippy edge it was hard to locate anything we could eat. What we came up with were the usual suspects- hardboiled eggs and delicious cheese. I think we're making up for any lost calories in cheese.

Today's Menu:
Breakfast-- garden & CSA potatoes, roasted, and fried eggs atop them. No ketchup-- looked into homemade ketchup but it seems to take forever, and I'm busy dehydrating every tomato in the house.
Lunch- leftover chicken & veggies from last night, hazelnuts.
Snacks-- dried cherries, hardboiled egg, cheese
Dinner-- chile rellanos stuffed with apples, pork and cheese. REALLY GOOD.
Dessert-- just kidding.

Back to baking bread so we have something to eat tomorrow. We have decided that we should call this the 1800s diet, because really it's taking us back in time. And I think I fit in better in a time with an overwhelming number of beverage options...

Days 2 & 3

Getting into the rhythm of eating very locally... Definitely miss my coffee and chocolate but it's going well!

Day 3 Menu
Breakfast-- pancakes with cherry preserves. YUM.
Lunch-- a piece of toast with my attempt at hazelnut butter- turned out to be just ground up hazelnuts, held it on the toast with honey, and some more cherry preserves, hard boiled egg (definitely eating more eggs than normal!), a glass of the most delicious milk ever!
Snacks-- cheese, cheese and more cheese. So many great local cheeses to try!
Dinner-- in the oven right now: a Kookoolan Farms chicken, baking with beets, onion, squash and potato. Will be enjoyed with a bottle of wine from a very local winery.

Day 2 Menu:
Breakfast-- smoothies with berries frozen this summer & local yogurt
Lunch-- I just sort of grazed the day away- a piece of "toast" with honey, hardboiled egg, cheese, tomatoes & beet greens, and dried cherries. Mark had more tomato soup, bread, hardboiled egg & sunflower seeds
Dinner-- zucchini "pasta"* with tomato sauce and fried eggplant (battered in egg and local corn meal), and the last of the sweet corn that we'll get in the CSA for the year

*grated into long strips, it's just raw zucchini, but tastes delicious with red sauce. We discovered this trick in the height of squash season this summer.

So far we've done pretty well in terms of not increasing our meat consumption, our cheese & egg eating rates have definitely gone up though. I went to a local cooperative market yesterday, and they had almost everything sourced and labeled, which was great. They also had some meats from one of the local farms we're looking into doing a share of meat from. This will mean buying 1/8 of a cow for example, directly from the farm. The advantages are high quality meat from a farmer you can meet and ask about their farming practices (and in most cases even visit the farm), but I'm just not sure we a) eat enough meat for it to be worth it or b) have enough freezer space for 1/8 of a cow! (especially not until the summer veggies taking up residence in there now have been eaten)

3 days down, 12 to go, I think we'll make it :-)

Day Numero Uno

Day #1 of the EcoChallenge is here!

And here's what's on the menu:
Breakfast: local farm yogurt & OR honey (no coffee, tea, etc. maybe some hot water?) for a beverage fanatic this is going to be interesting.

Lunch: garden tomato soup, bread made from the local wheat that is now flour thanks to the blender (a whole post about the flour situation later), pear, roasted sunflower seeds (from our garden)

Snacks: another pear and a hardboiled egg

Dinner: Potato Leek soup (leftover from last night- started the Challenge early, not entirely purposefully), and whatever veggies show up in our CSA and probably some more bread...

Not too bad...

Local Food: The Visual

Weekend Stockpiling

Our plans for the weekend include a visit to a farm southwest of Portland (at about 80 miles out they'll be likely the furthest source of food for us during the EcoChallenge) for our flour supply, and then a farm a little closer for dairy, eggs, and possibly a chicken or two. They are slaughtering chickens in the morning, so if they are ready in time we'll pick one up-- definitely haven't had meat that fresh before!

I just finished reading Farm City, by Novella Carpenter, and her tales of gardening and raising animals in inner city Oakland were inspiring- and I imagine the EcoChallenge will further my interest in knowing the source of the meats we eat.

As a former vegetarian (for 10 years or so), I know I can easily find plenty to eat without including meat in my diet. But, I also know that I feel a lot better when I am eating some meat so my current priority is to make the best choices around what meats I do eat. For me this generally means not eating too much meat at restaurants (because it's harder to source) and buying meat from natural food stores. The EcoChallenge has launched a new research effort for Mark and I to find out what other options are out there.

One such option is buying a portion of an animal directly from the small farm where it's raised and slaughtered. Our vegetable CSA farm has relationships with other farmers and first introduced us to this idea. At this point we're not sure we have enough freezer space, or the will to fork over that much money for meat at one time, but after a farm visit this weekend who knows...

The ingredients of our 100 mile diet

Here's what we'll be eating during the EcoChallenge:
-Homemade breads & pizzas
-All the veggies still producing in the garden-- beets, tomatoes, peppers, chard, kale. And maybe by the 2nd week the cabbage and turnips will be ready for early harvest?
-Apples & pears, and potentially still some peaches & nectarines
-In moderation, local meats, fish & dairy (we're visiting a local farm to stock up this weekend on our flour pick-up trip)
-CSA veggies-- if our share is anything like last week we'll be all set for veggies with the CSA alone!
-Frittatas, omelettes, and other egg dishes

What I haven't figured out how I will live without: chocolate. . .

The zero sugar aspect of our local diet will be very good for me, but hard!! I make a conscious effort not to eat tons of sugar, but the fact of the matter is I still love candy & chocolate... and haven't gone a day without sugar since... ever?

Success: Flour Located

We will have to get back into bread baking (and pizza making and maybe even tortilla making) come October 1, because I have successfully located a small farm that produced and processes their own wheat-- and sells small enough bags of flour for household consumption. Next Saturday we'll drive down to Corvallis (81 miles away) and pick up three 5lb. bags of flour, and some dried fava beans (the only local beans they have left-- time to experiment!).

100 Mile Wheat Search

I am about 2 hours into my search for local wheat at this point in time, and running into what is likely to be the largest stumbling block for people trying to eat locally: time. Well, that and the lack of local coffee sources :-)

After 2 hours I think I might have located a farm that grows and processes wheat within 100 miles of Portland. This means we'll be able to make bread, tortillas and pasta-- staples in our diet right now. Without a local wheat source we'll be living relatively carb-free for the duration of the EcoChallenge... But since the EcoChallenge is all about reducing your impact, eating a more meat and dairy than usual isn't sitting right with me either. So the wheat search continues...

(And the tomoatoes continue! We're probably at 120-150 pounds of tomatoes from our garden so far! This week alone we've had tomato pie (thumbs down), pasta with tomato sauce, greek salad, sundried tomatoes, and loads of cherry tomato snacks.)

Eating Local, Wedding Style

What will we do with about 40 pounds of fresh tomatoes harvested from our garden? This week at least, we'll incorporate them into our wedding celebration. We are making lasagna for 60 people, and have garden fresh tomato sauce in the works. We'll toss in whatever looks good from the garden and weekly CSA box too, and let our guests enjoy the fruits of summer too!

Now if only that plum wine that's slowly brewing in the basement was ready too!

Thank you to everyone who has made a pledge for my EcoChallenge!! I appreciate your support! And am 1/5 of the way to my fundraising goal-- if you haven't made a pledge click here for more info: www.nwei.dojiggy.com/kerryl

Sponsor me!

The EcoChallenge is a fundraiser for the Northwest Earth Institute where I work. Like most nonprofits, the economic realities of late have been Challenging with a capital C, which means that the EcoChallenge is an important event for us this fall.

Everyone on staff, and our entire board of directors, will be participating in the EcoChallenge, along with a growing contingent of local "Portland Celebrities". We'll be raising money for the Northwest Earth Institute programs, and demonstrating the collective power of many people taking one small action toward a sustainable future. In order to add another element to the Challenge, and because we have a few competitive folks on staff :-) we are having a contest amongst the employees to see who can raise the most $ during the EcoChallenge.

This is where you come in-- help me get to the top (and score an extra vacation day!) by making a pledge today. For every pledge I receive you'll receive many THANKS from me, for those who can pledge $35 or more you'll get an NWEI membership, AND I will dedicate a meal during the Challenge to you, and send you the recipes so you can enjoy some seasonal eats too.

Click here to make a pledge today.

THANK YOU in advance for your support!!

(And as always, all donations are tax deductible and go directly toward our programs)

Fall Garden

Thinking about what I am going to eat in October on a sunny August day is not something I generally do. However, with my impending local eating challenge and the end of summer gardening approaching, this weekend will be phase 1 of my fall garden. Hopefully some of the starts I put in this weekend will be ready by October, and the seeds well on their way to being full grown plants.

After doing some research, it looks like Portland fall gardens generally contain carrots, leeks, beets, turnips, greens (more kale and chard, is it possible for me to eat more kale and chard??) and brussel sprouts.

Off to the nursery tonight to seek out heirloom seeds (with names like "Nordic Kale" they will hopefully be up for their own challenge of growing in a time of waning light and increasingly brisk days).

Locavore Pledge

So I am definitely not the first person trying this whole eat only local foods thing-- there's an entire movement of folks out there, the Locavores.

I stumbled upon the Locavore pledge today:
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.

And this version which I like even more:
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.
If all else fails, at least don’t eat at McDonald’s!

This October 1-15...

October 1 will find me taking on a new challenge: the 2009 EcoChallenge. I will be attempting to eat super locally for 15 days-- consuming nothing that originates from outside of a 100 mile radius of my home in Portland, Oregon.

Why on earth am I doing this? The simplest answer is for the Earth.

Our food systems have grown, and distanced us from the source of our food. This has environmental, social and psychological implications, and none of them are too great. (Don't get me wrong, there are advantages to having readily available foods no matter what your growing conditions or season, and I am not idealizing the past in any way, but there are also major advantages to knowing the source of your food, eating foods that are in season, and supporting local farmers and food processors.)

I first became interested in eating locally while living in the "produce belt" of California. Santa Cruz offered plentiful local food options, and I started to consider eating locally and seasonally while shopping the farmer's markets and learning to prepare new foods. My interest in sustainable eating has only grown since moving to Portland last summer.

Here, we have the ability to grow many of our own foods, to join CSA's and support local farms, to choose restaurants who create local & seasonal menus, and to reduce our environmental footprint by choosing foods that haven't been shipped from across the country.

Our first spring in Portland has opened our eyes to the availability of fresh, local fruits and veggies. My partner, Mark, and I have started our first garden this spring, joined a CSA and after taking NWEI's Menu for the Future course with some friends, started to automatically consider the source of the foods we buy.

For all these reasons, and because I like a good challenge every once in a while, I will try to eat only foods that are grown and processed here in the Portland area. It won't be as easy in October as it would right now-- when the garden is full of options!- but I think I can do it...

(If you are interested in learning more about our food systems, check out Food Inc., a great documentary that came out this spring. Or read Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma, or Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. )