September Suggestions

For those of you who don't know, I'm hittin' the road! I'll be flying out to Portland, Oregon later today and driving cross country with my friend Jess for the first 2 weeks of September. I did have a challenge planned out for September, but it's not very adaptable to travel so I'm looking for suggestions. Anyone have any good ideas? Do something I've never done before each day? Ask a stranger for their life story? What do you think?

Culinary delights!

I know this isn't a blog about cooking, but this month has been all about cooking for me, and I love it. Usually when I go to the grocery store, I have meals in mind and I buy the necessary ingredients. During local month, I've been venturing out, getting whatever looks good or intriguing.

Thursdays are "fresh fish day" at Dave's Fresh Pasta in Davis Square. I bought haddock, yellow carrots, and collard greens. Then I went to the farmers' market in Kendall (loved it) and bought little red potatoes (with the dirt still on them!) and homemade honey pesto. I also ate some homemade local burnt sugar ice cream. It was heavenly. I made an awesome meal with my findings: haddock with honey pesto, roasted yellow carrots and onions, sauteed collard greens, and scalloped red potatoes. So fresh, so lovely.

I've been yearning for fish tacos all month, so I stepped outside the local boundaries a bit. I bought catfish at the South Boston fish market, a lime and an avocado (not local!), fresh tortillas at Fresh Tortillas (the Asian Mexican restaurant in Southie... they made them right in front of me... fantastic), and, ready for this? I got a head of cabbage, 2 ears of corn, 4 tomatoes (2 heirloom), an onion, an eggplant, and a jalapeno pepper for $4.50 at the Southie farmers' market. My eyeballs almost popped out of my head when the guy told me how much it cost. So cheap! I mixed my own Cajun seasoning since I didn't want to buy the pre-made one (equal parts salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, paprika, celery salt, garlic powder, and onion flakes) and rubbed the catfish with it, then pan-cooked it in olive oil. I roasted the jalapeno pepper to make it a little milder and mixed it with onion and tomato for a simple pico de gallo. Shred the cabbage, mush the avocado, slice the lime, heat the tortillas... I also like to make a hot sauce mixture which may sound gross but it's delicious with the tacos: a couple of spoonfuls of mayo with a whole bunch of hot sauce (I'm partial to Cholula). I love condiments, what can I say? Then assemble the tacos! Tortilla, Cajun catfish, hot mayo, avocado, cabbage, pico de gallo, spritz of lime, side of corn on the cob... soo good. I'm really impressed with the tortillas from Fresh Tortillas. I'm sure their ingredients aren't local, but the novelty of having them cook them right in front of my face is really special. Made with Asian/Mexican love!

Yesterday I sliced my little eggplant and laid it out in a casserole dish with olive oil, salt, pepper, cumin, and paprika. Baked it at 375 for about 35 min probably. Then I layered eggplant slices with sliced heirloom tomato (a green and pinkish red one) and drizzled the stack with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. I cannot even believe how tasty it was. My mind was blown. The simple flavors melded together into one gorgeous, magical taste. I sound like I'm being dramatic, but it really was a phenomenal little meal.

And today! I had leftovers from the tacos, so I made corn/avocado salad. One ear of corn (cooked and cut off the cob), half an avocado (cubed), a small red tomato (diced), a handful of shredded cabbage, the juice from 3 lime wedges, a drizzle of olive oil, sprinkle of cayenne pepper, salt, and pepper. I ate it with a heated leftover tortilla, and it was so good! Once again, simple, but incredibly tasty. The tomato was quite possibly the best tomato I've ever eaten, and I bought it for probably about 25 cents at the Southie farmers' market.

Speaking of tomatoes! My plant finally has a few little green babies growing. They are only the size of dimes right now, but they're undeniable! Also - I signed up today for the Dogma box from Boston Organics. My sister is moving in tomorrow (yay!!) so we're going to share the local produce delivery. I ordered extra carrots to put my new juicer to good use.

I love eating local food. I don't want to stop. So I won't.

Wow.

Boston Globe Magazine published an article that speaks out on the negative aspects of the local diet. Umm forgive me, but I see no negatives here. I only read part of the article so far because I'm too heated to read it all right now. The educated comments in response to the article made me feel better, but I can't help thinking of all of the people out there who will read it and take it at face value instead of recognizing the faults within this man's line of thinking.

Take a look at the article here and comment away!

Magical, Domestic August

I love eating locally! I was inspired to be all domestic two weekends ago and baked bread, made pickles, and hung laundry washed in natural lavender detergent on the clothes line. How delightful!

















































Also - Danne, Tim, and I visiting a lavender farm on Cape Cod a couple of weekends ago. It was pretty magical:

Week 2, I Love You

Um, Jenny and I went to the farmers market at Harvest Co-op in Central today and I went mental and bought everything. Not only did I purchase a ton of delicious looking vegetables (including a skinny, twisted eggplant and black tomatoes), but I got a blueberry turnover from a local bakery and homemade cranberry lavender lemonade. Best find of the day though? Ambrosia tea from The Herb Lyceum in Groton, MA. Field trip anyone?

After the market, we headed over to Dave's Fresh Pasta in Somerville where I purchased black pepper fettuccine and local soft ripened cheese.

I'll be eating delicious and local for a mere $50. I love this month.

Fanne Enjoying Some Local Catnip

Eating Local – Week 1

The months that have been the most habit altering (detox month, no trash month, etc.) seem to take a little longer to ease into than the other months. I'd say that it takes a week or so to really get into it and figure out what you're doing. Week 1 has been just this for me: the week to figure out what I can and can't eat, what I can get and where, and also just to finish up a few non-local perishables that I have in my fridge from last week that I don't want to go to waste.

My biggest observation so far has been that you have to go out of your way to eat local. I wasn't able to make it to a farmers market so it was a bit of a struggle to find food in the grocery store that was native to New England. I was especially disappointed when I went to Russo's the other day and discovered that about 95% of their produce wasn't grown anywhere near New England. As I've probably obsessed to many of you, Russo's is my most favourite supermarket ever and I love it times 10,000, but really, do you need to get your tomatoes from Canada? The only local produce I could find was zucchini and summer squash. It just doesn't make sense that with such an abundance of farms in this region that we should have to import so much from other parts of the world. Week 1's lesson learned: Don't rely on supermarkets for the rest of the month, the farmers market is where it's at. I even went as far as to make myself a chart of the days and times of all the farmers markets in the Boston area (thank you unemployment for unlimited free time to do things like this).

Some other notable things this week:

Amanda and I went on a really awesome and very helpful local food hunt. We found out some great information like:

At City Feed & Supply in JP you can get veggie burgers from Maine, JP made tofu, and local honey. They even have tags that list where all their food is from and include the miles that it took to get to the store. They make it so easy!

The Dairy Bar in Somerville has tons of local dairy including: milk, eggs, butter, ice cream, whipped cream, and lots of different kinds of cheese.

Dave's Fresh Pasta in Somerville is amazing and in addition to a million varieties of homemade pasta, we found peanut butter made in Cambridge. Horray!

I found out that Not Your Average Joes is having Local Fest this month so it looks like I'll actually be able to go out to eat! Does anyone know of any other restaurants that serve local cuisine?

My container gardens are doing really great and I'm looking forward to eating some home grown white eggplant later this month.

Lastly, does anyone know where I can find local: crackers, wraps for sandwiches, soy milk and tortilla chips?

The 100 Mile Diet

After a few slow months, I think we'll be very busy blogging in August. While I did actively participate in June's "Write Down 30 Things You Want to Do and Do Something Different Each Day" and July's "Contact Someone You Don't Speak to on a Regular Basis Every Day", there hasn't been too much to report. I had a few gratifying moments from each month but overall they didn't feel like too much of a challenge. I'm very excited for August which might turn out to be the biggest challenge thus far: The 100 Mile Diet.

I'm just finishing up reading, The 100 Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating, by Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon which stemmed from their widely publicized blog. The philosophy is simple, the couple decided to eat only food grown and produced within a 100-mile radius of their apartment. The book chronicles their journey through this difficult but rewarding year and definitely makes you really think about where your food comes from and about the benefits of eating locally and seasonally.

Since I've become more interested in eating locally anyway, I decided that making this into a Twelve Months of Lent challenge would be perfect. Starting August 1st I'll officially be a Boston localvore.

Although I plan on being as strict as possible about this, I am going to set my own parameters to make it bearable. What I've determined so far:

1. I'm extending the 100 miles to include all of New England.

2. All produce must be grown in New England (omg, no avocados).

3. All dairy and seafood must be local.

4. I can use spices and oils that are already in my pantry.

5. Alcohol should be local but I'm not going to be fussy about where they grow their grains or grapes.

6. Bread. Oh wow, what do I do without bread? Is there a local flour source? Half of me wants to say that I can eat bread as long as I make it myself or buy it from a local bakery, but the other half wants to be really strict and say unless it's local grain then I can't have it at all. For now I'm going to try to seek out a local source and I'll cross that bridge when I get there if I can't find one.

7. I'm allowing myself 5 local-free meals, meant to be used for things like my Nana's 90th birthday party, dinner parties with friends, and times of desperation when I'm starving and nothing local can be found.


I'm sure more things will come up but for now, he's a list of resources that I've already found:

Boston Localvores Blog

Boston's Local Food Shed

Harvest Co-op

City Feed and Supply

Brattleboro Food Co-op

Boston Organics' Dogma Box

Definitely comment and share your favourite local places if you have any!

I fell off the wagon, but I'm climbing onto it again

I haven't posted in a very long time and it's because I've been doing a rather poor job of following the challenges lately. Who wants to think about failure? Not me! But I suppose I do have some things to report.

I believe my last post was in May, which was "create no trash" month. I had my first experience with composting, and it was pretty awful. I bought a little plastic scrap bucket for the kitchen and kept meaning to buy a larger bucket for my back porch but didn't get around to it for... about a month. Meanwhile, the food garbage in the scrap bucket began festering and growing black mold and other sorts of creatures. I eventually threw out the entire bucket because the contents were so heinous, there was just no going back. I finally bought a large bucket in the beginning of June and have since been composting more intelligently, with a nice ratio of green to brown matter. It's not nearly as terrifying this time around.

I did not complete June's challenge of "30 things". To date, I think I've done about 1/3 of the items on my list. When I was thinking of things to do, it was rather haphazard, and throughout June my list kept evolving. I lost interest in some items and added others halfway through the month. June also ended up being the busiest month in the history of man. I played field hockey and softball (my team won the championship, woo!), volunteered a lot, went camping/canoeing, cooked a veggie burger inside of a waffle... life was crazy. At one point I was feeling guilty about June so I spontaneously got a pedicure and had my tarot cards read. I felt worse afterward because I spent too much money and all I had to show for it were toes I could have painted myself and a fortune that said I'm going to meet my fair-skinned German soulmate in three months' time. A worthwhile June endeavor: I planted my tomato seedling that I grew from a seed. Check this beauty out:

Now July! July is contact 31 people month. I've been doing alright with this challenge which I owe largely to luck. It just so happened that a few people on my list kind of fell into my lap and I was able to see them in person without much effort at all! What a dream. I wasn't doing as well with my July list recently, but I contacted... drum roll please... six people today! Only two of them answered the phone, but hey, baby steps. I also took a nice walk today around Castle Island and bought lunch at the food hut I've been meaning to try. Cheap and tasty! I was fat and happy.

It has definitely become apparent that the most successful months are also the most challenging ones. The most rewarding times are the times where I alter my lifestyle in some way for the better (i.e. vegan detox, pick up trash, create no trash). I am therefore excited to unveil the new, improved August: consume locally month! How provocative! Danne has done a bunch of reading about the 100 Mile Diet, where you don't eat anything that has travelled farther than 100 miles to your plate, so we are going to give it a shot. I'm definitely ready for a challenge again!

Oh, and Tim and I signed up for the Mud Hog Race in New Hampshire on August 8th. It should be a blast if any of you want to come cheer us on! What is a Mud Hog Race, you ask? Why, it's a 6-mile running/biking race with a 60 foot mud pit you crawl through to get to the finish line, of course! Our team name is Check Out My Mudstache! It should be quite fun :)

The Race Is On

June hasn't been going exactly as planned. This months challenge is to write down 30 things that you want to do and do something different from the list each day. I don't know about everyone else, but June has been the busiest month of my entire life. I had to stay late a bunch of nights for work, I went to a ton of shows, my Project M application was due, my new photo class started and it's two nights a week instead of just one, etc...So, what I'm getting at is that I've barely done anything from my list.Now that things have died down a bit though, the race is on to cross as many things off as possible in the next week. Just today, I made muffins from scratch and wrote some Yelp reviews, there's two right there! A few other things from the list that I hope to get to this week:

-Play monopoly
-Do yoga
-Infuse vodka with fruit
-Finish designing Sondra's Etsy banner (i mean it this time Sondra!)
-Go to Bluegrass night at the Cantab Lounge
-Cross stitch
-Buy a Spare Change newspaper from the guy that has been selling them outside of South Station every day since I started working at Neoscape.

and you know what, I'll just keep going through the list all summer. I'm ok with taking my time for this one.