Wednesday, March 25, 2009

locavore challenge.

Buy fresh, buy local. I've said it a bunch on this site; it's a steady mantra in Santa Cruz. But I'd still buy the occasional banana or sweet Chilean grapes in winter, and our organic sandwich bread of choice came from Texas.

Between Woody Tasch and Barbara Kingsolver, these choices haven't been feeling very good lately. So. We decided as we usher in Spring this year we're going to try to be (95%) locavores. (I can't give up coffee. Or sugar. Period. Don't judge me.) We're still in the process of clearing the garden beds, but we've already got snow peas, arugula, artichokes, and the asparagus bed is just starting to pop. I know we're lucky where we live - here's a list of all the great stuff that can be found in or near the Bay Area.

But you can find wonderful products everywhere - here's a list of incredible offerings in North Carolina, from cheese to mushrooms to garlic (and I thought California had cornered the market), and another for Maine. There's even an iPhone app that tells you what's in season all the time wherever you are.

You might not be able to eat tomatoes in January, but Kingsolver's point is, why would you want to? They're never going to be as good as the local heirlooms you'll find at your farmers market in July.

I'm having a meeting tonight at my home, and was planning to serve cheese and wine. It's the first time I've been in a store since my surgery, and I found it a little challenging. I had to forego crackers (the closest I could find came from Seattle), and decided to make bread instead.

I'll be doing this a lot - butter's a cinch to make, too. These loaves turned out a little sweet (local honey) and a little chewy, but overall I'm happy. The flour wasn't local (I've got a wheat grinder and have made flour before; I just have to get up to Pie Ranch, or figure out how to get Fully Belly Farm's flour a little further south than Berkeley).

Finding cheese was easier - we've got Harley Farms, Cowgirl Creamery, and Point Reyes Farmstead all in our proverbial backyard.

I'll steam a couple of artichokes, serve them with homemade aioli, grab a couple of bottles of wine, aaand DONE.

This isn't ever going to be a food blog, but I'll certainly keep you posted on how the challenge is going. At this point we're taking it a month at a time. As long as 95% of our food comes from local sources, we'll consider ourselves successful.