Food Challenge: Local Eating

According to the documentary Ingredients, 20% of the United States' natural fossil fuel consumption goes towards the packaging, processing and transporting of food.  People always say we are in an energy crisis but before now, I simply contributed the crisis to cars with bad gas mileage and long commutes to work.  Never did I realize that the food I put in my mouth could be contributing to the energy crisis as much as the miles I drive.  So I started to think, where is my food coming from?  How far is it traveling? What kind of life does it have before I buy it?  Who is growing my food?

Unfortunately I could not answer most of those questions.  Instead, I bought food because it was on sale.  I bought food that we're comfortable with eating.  I bought food that I grew up eating.  I bought food that was convenient to buy.  I bought food with no idea where it came from, not even if it was of U.S. origin.  In order to help with the energy crisis, support local farmers and eat food that has better nutrients (because it's picked based on ripeness, not based on it's ability to travel long distances), I am choosing to eat more food grown locally.

One of our grocery stores does sell some local produce on occasion, but I have found the easiest place to buy local produce is at the farmer's market.  It's open twice a week, Wednesday afternoons and Saturday mornings, and takes place in a parking lot here in town.  At the peak of the season, there are about 10 vendors who sell a variety of produce, meats and baked goods.  Not only is it convenient for finding fresh, local produce, but it's a great way to meet the farmers and develop a relationship.  The farmer's market is only open May - October so come November - April I am going to have to find another way to buy local produce.  At that point I think I'll dabble in the world of CSA's (Community Supported Agriculture).

Here is the bounty of produce I picked up the first time I went to the farmer's market this season: beets, loose leaf lettuce, sugar snap peas, kale, purple "green" beans, asparagus, whole wheat bread and cinnamon sugar apple flat bread.

The easy part for me is shopping for the food, and it's fun to try new things.  But remember when I told you that this wasn't going to be easy and that there are going to be challenges?  Well, I found a challenge.  The hard part for me is making sure all the food gets put to use and eaten before it goes bad.  I bought all of this on June 14th and I have already used the ingredients to make: salad, roasted beet salad, sauteed beet greens, kale chips, roasted green beans, chicken pesto lasagna, sweet beet cookies, "Hulk" pancakes (aka beet green pancakes but my husband thought Hulk pancakes was more appealing since they are green) and normal bread things like toast & sandwiches.

But now it's June 22, 8 days later, and I still have some of the lettuce, beets, sugar snap peas, kale, asparagus and whole wheat bread.  And beyond that, I went back to the farmer's market yesterday and loaded myself down with even more produce.

Why?  Because I got excited about strawberries & rhubarb because the two go together like chocolate & peanut butter.  They make the best desserts!  Within two hours of bringing them home I made strawberry-rhubarb scones and cherry-rhubarb crisp.  Yum!

My challenges for this week:

1. Use the remaining produce before it goes bad.  I'm thinking maybe a stir fry, soup and/or frittata will be on the menu.
2. Figure out how to cook with garlic scapes.  Before yesterday I had no idea what they were but one of the farmers had them in bulk and was handing them out for free.  I couldn't say no to something new. 
3. Try not to eat cherry-rhubarb crisp at every meal. :)

My sister is sweet enough to already call me a locavore, but I don't think I've earned the right to wear that badge quite yet, but I do appreciate the vote of confidence.