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Five steps to local eating

 

by Jennifer Maiser, editor

This post is for the folks who are just dipping their toe into the local eating world. We already know that there are great reasons to eat locally, but what is the best way to get started? Below are the main ways that I tell people they can get started with local eating.

And what better time to try this than summertime?

1. Frequent your farmers market. Find a local farmers market, grab some reusable bags, and head down to find local, in season fruit and vegetables from local farmers. The great thing about farmers markets is that they are not only a fabulous place to pick up your food for the week, but they are a fun way to shop.

2. Choose five foods that you can source locally. A good way to get a feel for your local foodshed is to figure out what your area is best at growing. Choose five foods and commit to eating those locally for a while, so that you can get your locavore feet wet in a manageable way. Stuck for ideas? Try looking for local cheese, eggs, dairy, potatoes, in-season tomatoes, or root vegetables like carrots and onions. These are foods that commonly can be grown in many different climates.

3. Sign up for a CSA. The term CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture, and it's a fantastic way to support a local farmer and get fresh, local produce at the same time. You pay a subscription (usually either weekly or quarterly), and receive a weekly box of produce of what's in season at the farm. Want to find a CSA in your area? Check out Local Harvest.

4. Pickle, can, freeze or dehydrate! One way to be a locavore year-round is to preserve food while it's in season. Is there a glut of blueberries at your market? Buy when they're on sale, freeze them, and use them for muffins in the dead of winter. Canning doesn't have to be scary, and many locavores are canning in small batches in their homes. Start small with a one of the ideas from preserving website Punk Domestics.

5. Can't find locally grown? Try locally produced. Many items like bread, pastries, coffee and jams aren't always sourced with local ingredients. The next best thing is to buy them from local businesses: coffee purveyors who source their beans carefully and roast locally, bakers who buy the best wheat they can and make daily bread in the next town over, artisans who buy citrus from a reputable farm and make a local marmalade. You're still keeping some of your dollars local and supporting local businesses.

Five Foods I Only Tried by Eating Local

by Expat Chef

It would seem like once you get to be an adult, and an adventurous eater at that, new foods would require a passport, extra bag fees and various immunizations. Truth is, that exotic vegetable experience was as close as a trip to the farmers market — or delivered in my CSA box. Here’s just a few of the new foods that have ruined me for the megamart.

1.     Heirloom tomatoes. Okay, the trend has passed. It’s so five years ago. But I’ll never be able to look at a store bought tomato again. Much less eat one. Even with my voracious appetite for all things veg, I still have roughly 500 more varieties to still try. Favorites from under 100 samplings? Green Zebra, Cherokee Purple, German Stripe, Sungold Cherry, and the Technicolor kaleidoscope of tomatoes, Mr. Stripey.

 

2.     Kale, collards and chard. Unless you grow up a bit further south, the only greens you see are kale leaves used as a garnish on a buffet. Forget the chicken-fried whatever on top. Eat the kale, especially if it is the sexy purple kind or the kind with the little yellow flowers, or the luscious baby kale mix from my CSA. Best prep? For collards, a quick sauté with bacon. Kale chips are the family favorite, but kale and white beans with garlic are my pick. Chard can substitute for spinach, and tastes even better.

3.     Heirloom winter squash. I have a small problem with these. If you can call 300 lbs. of the stuff a “small” problem. You’ll need to ditch the canned stuff, get a sharp knife, and a few ethnic cookbooks (try Caribbean, Mexican and South American for starters) to understand just how many amazing recipes you can make with these. My picks? I’m a bit of a Francophile when it comes to winter squash. French heirlooms such as the Musquee de Provence and Rouge Vif D’Etampes (sold as Fairy Tale and Cinderella, respectively).

4.     Weed. Okay, I’m not in THAT kind of CSA. The feds won’t be knocking to take away my foraged goodness. The fact is, many a plant referred to as a “weed” is really an edible delight. Not ALL, mind you. So don’t head out to the yard with a fork unless you have an educated forager/farmer along for the meal. Dandelion greens would be the most familiar in this category, but hold the Roundup if you plan on harvesting your own. Other sexy salad greens disguised as weeds? Miner’s lettuce, pursulane, and some varieties of amaranth — also known under the far less sexy name of pigweed.

5.     Purple haze. Nope, no weed induced visions here. Wrong weeds. Purple just keeps showing up in new ways when I eat local. Purple cauliflower, carrots, bell peppers, hot peppers, tomatillos, tomatoes not to mention all the extra purple shades of eggplant that are not, well, eggplant-colored.

Expat Chef is Beth Bader, co-author of upcoming The Cleaner Plate Club: Advice and Recipes for Getting Real Kids to Love Real Food.

Giveaway announcement: How to Cook Everything App and an iPad

by Jennifer Maiser, editor

I was really excited last week when Mark Douglas, one of the founders of Culinate, emailed me to say that they had completed work on a new iPhone app which would house the complete contents of Mark Bittman's book How to Cook Everything.

I consult Bittman's book about once a week. Sometimes, it's just to find out proportions for things like handmade mayonnaise. Other times, it's to get new ideas for an ingredient or recipe. Since its initial publication in 1998, this book has become my starting point for much of my cooking.

The loose cooking method that Bittman uses is perfect for farmers market shoppers, as you can often substitute seasonal ingredients or get ideas for items you pick up at the market. I am happy that Culinate chose to tackle the big job of getting this book into an iPhone app because now I'll be able to consult it while I'm shopping.

Culinate has made three copies of the app available to Eat Local Challenge readers. 

To enter the drawing, go to the Facebook fan page and leave a comment telling us what your favorite Bittman recipe (or adapted recipe) is.

Also, awesomely, Culinate is giving away an iPad. Any winners of the iPhone app will be entered into a drawing for the iPad which will occur in May. 

If you want to purchase the app directly, you can do that here.

Drawing details: Drawing will close at midnight PST on Wednesday, April 21. To enter, you must leave a comment on the Facebook fan page with your favorite Bittman recipe. If you do not use Facebook, email us with your name and you will be entered. We will select three contest winners at random. One entry per person, please.

A teenager eats locally in Minnesota

Editor's note: The highlight of my week was to receive an email from Nicole F., a 17-year old teenager from Plymouth, Minnesota. She took on a week of eating locally in March, and wrote about it on her blog, An Experiment in Eating Locally. I asked her to summarize her project here, and for more information, you can check out her site. Thanks, Nicole!

As a junior in high school, the concept of eating locally had never occurred to me. I knew about eating organically and nutritiously. I knew about recycling and composting. But I had never considered eating locally grown food until I read Barbara Kingsolver’s book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. This book offered me a challenge and I gladly accepted.

I soon began my own experiment: one week of eating locally grown food versus one week of eating food only from Target. The experiment is to figure out which is better based on economic factors, nutrition, lifestyle factors, accessibility, variety, and locality of food.

I live in Minnesota and, as I found out, chose the worst possible time to start my experiment. We are at the end of a long, cold winter.

The week began by calling four co-ops that were recommended as most likely to be selling locally grown food. The first place I called had only potatoes, tomatoes, and green cabbage. The second and third told me to come back in three weeks. The fourth place I called, Seward Co-op in Minneapolis, was just slight of a miracle. They named 12 vegetables that were locally grown.

I was thrilled and began my shopping adventure.

Seward Co-op labeled every item as local, organic, or gluten free. The produce items were labeled by place of origin. Locally produced items were labeled by distance to the farm. I credit the success of my eating locally to this co-op.

I chose to purchase local meat from an independent farm. Early Saturday morning, my dad and I traveled an hour by car to Sunshine Harvest Farms. The farmers gave us a great tour of their six-acre farm. We met sheep, ducks, and my favorite, Swissy, the milk cow. We bought ground beef, two whole chickens, lamb, and steak. All animals were grass-fed and had wide-open pastures to graze.

My family ate locally every meal for the next week. It was a strict and thoughtful diet. We ate everything from local honey to local beets. It was more work than expected, but also more rewarding. The hardest part of the eating locally week was the planning and time spent on every meal. I needed to bring my lunch to school every day and there was no such thing as a quick dinner.

It was a love-hate relationship: I loved how it forced me to eat healthier and I felt great about helping my local economy and the environment. However, it was difficult to find locally grown food in Minnesota in March and took a lot of effort.

This week I have begun my Target diet. This diet has also had its ups and downs. I love my fruit and variety, but I am eating food from over 5,000 miles away, which I now feel guilty about.

All in all, I found that with sacrifice, it is definitely possible to eat locally grown food in Minnesota. I know that come summer and fall, Minnesotans will have even more variety of choices. Through this experiment I am going to choose local food labels. I have empathy for the struggles and triumphs of the small farmer. Now, I have more knowledge and experience in eating locally grown food than the average teenager.

You can read more about this project on my blog: An Experiment in Eating Locally.