The best local dishes I made…

While, as I stated in a previous post, I ate a lot a lot of salad during the course of my strict totally local diet, I did also create a few excellent full Sunday dinner(and breakfast)-style meals.  

Here are couple things I came up with I feel are worthy sharing:

• A goat’s yoghurt and dill topping for potatoes roasted with garlic, onions, butter, ground coriander seed, and salt.
• Scrambled eggs with onions and fresh dill (I’m noticing a bit of a herb trend.) It was refreshing and eliminated any residual childhood-born urge to put ketchup on my eggs.
• A mixed green salad with kale, mustard greens, roasted beets, goat’s cheese and a touch of garlic and dill dressing. Wow, I might actually have a serious dill addiction.

I have always liked food, but I haven’t always loved vegetables they way I do now, which is more than the average person. What I did notice about not having a variety of available spices, is I was forced to enjoy the natural flavours of the vegetables.

On the kindness of people

The inherent goodness of human nature is a belief I typically ascribe to, even though my philosophical viewpoints often lend toward that of a skeptic. In life, however, you can’t deny the sometimes surprising goodness of people.

So far, along my local-food journey I have encountered an extraordinary amount of kindness and support.

First, let me tell you about the woman who helped me at The Cheese Gallery in Thornbury. Barbara Trafford was patient and helpful as we tried to determine which cheeses were made within my geographic dietary restrictions. Oh, and we did, with the help of my Blackberry. I have Pine River cheddar from Ripley, and yogurt form Wooldrift Farm in Markdale. Not only was she kind when I was in the store, she emailed me later with a list of local producers she knows of and if that weren’t enough to demonstrate that Barbara Trafford is a thoughtful person, she dropped off some feta at the E-B from Wooldrift Farms.

The woman who owns the chipper with her husband, is always so kind. When I asked her where their potatoes came from she laughed and told me “from the ground.” After I explained what I was doing she was pleased to tell me they are local potatoes. And it didn’t seem like she was just happy to sell me some, it seemed as though she was happy for me because I could eat them and not have to sit silently while my family feasted on poutine and burgers.

Then there was the server at Three Guys and a Stove, who helped me determine which parts of the meal I could have and never showed any signs of irritation, even when I was irritating everyone else at the table.

I can’t forget the women who own and work at the Creemore 100 Mile Store, who organized the Local Food Challenge. They are intelligent, kind, caring people. I have spent little more than half an hour with them, but I walked away inspired, with a renewed sense of faith in humanity. Yup, I’m a bit of an idealist.

The young woman at Georgian Hills winery on Grey Road 2 busted out the new 2010 Marechal Foch for me to try, which was quite nice. If you like light whites and haven’t tried their Seyval Blanc, I recommend you do.

Most of the people selling at the farmers’ markets…nice, and they genuinely care about the food they are producing, which automatically makes me like them.

Close enough?

I love food. I think about it often. But it seems to be the only thing on my mind since I started the local food challenge on Saturday morning.

My 100-mile diet got off to a great start with an amazing breakfast being sold at the Local Food Challenge booth. It consisted of delicious beet and carrot pancakes courtesy of the New Farm interns, served with a garlic, dill, and yogurt sauce. There were also more traditional buttermilk blueberry pancakes and whole spelt pancakes. The breakfast sausages were from Stayner Meat Packers (I took note for next time I need to get meat.)

I can’t say I have been eating poorly since then – the quality is great — but my creativity with using what’s available and my excitement is dwindling. I really am used to eating what I want, when I want it.

I used to think cooking for one was hard. Try cooking all-local for one.

Also, snacks are difficult – the only thing I can think of is fruit, salad, or a pepperoni stick, which I have been going through like madwoman.

“I’m just going to make a quick salad,” was my most-used phrase over the long weekend. They are fantastic salads, don’t get me wrong; mixed greens, mustard greens, and kale from the New Farm, topped with dill goats cheese, and yellow plums, or beautiful multi-coloured carrots. But the sheer amount of salad I have been eating is borderline ridiculous.

The thing is, I haven’t had any bread or pasta. Some of the quickest meals you can make involve those items. I could make my own bread, but I don’t even have the time to figure out where to get flour from. That will be this week’s goal: eat some bread.

I have discovered: Georgian Hills winery has some nice wines; Creemore Springs does not grow on site, but I have been drinking it anyway. Close enough? I am a caffeine-addict – I feel like I might actually die without coffee, so I have been doing the next best thing and having ethically-produced, fairly-traded, locally roasted coffee. The cheese I have had is some of the best in my life.

I tried going out for dinner while my family was here on the weekend. I was irritating even myself. Although the restaurant sourced its meat and seasonal vegetables locally, imported vegetables were mixed in with the medley, the potatoes were from P.E.I., Plus, I could not have any seasoning on my steak. So really, I had a ball of steak for dinner, which warranted another quick salad when I got home.

I have been eating a lot of raw vegetables; roasting a lot of potatoes and beets; frying sausages and eggs; using a lot of dill, basil, oregano, onion, and garlic for flavouring; and covering most things in cheese. I replaced the contents of the pepper grinder with coriander seeds, which is a good alternative and instead of replacing olive oil with canola of flax, I have been consuming an awful lot of butter.

Honesty, I’m not sure if I can afford to do this for a full two weeks, but I haven’t given up yet.

Tonight’s the night

My fridge is free of any non-local food that was going to expire in the next two weeks. And today my stomach is not too pleased about eating it all.  

Last night, I went to Loblaw and bought one mango, one avocado, and a bag of dill potato chips. I am about to head over to the Huron Club for either nachos or pulled pork. Does binging on all the food I’m going to miss cheapen the 100-mile challenge I start tomorrow morning? Maybe a bit.

So far I have some local cheese, meat, and vegetables, I am looking forward to the farmers’ market and pancake breakfast.

Oh, and I have some local wine.

 

Getting geared for the 100-mile diet

A challenge has been put to Collingwood and Creemore residents to eat one locally-sourced meal a day for a week. Challenge accepted.

The 100-mile store in Creemore started the challenge two years ago to encourage people to think about what they are eating and where it comes from. The store’s owner, Jackie Durnford, said they didn’t make the challenge too strict, because they didn’t want to discourage anyone.  

I am already fairly mindful of where my food comes from, so I am going to step the challenge up a bit and try and eat and drink only local food at every meal for two weeks.

I’m not trying to be a show-off. But, I do think it will give me a better understanding of what is available in the area, and, since my diet is more onerous, I think it will probably take more than a week for me get the hang of it.

Vegetables are easy. Two words: farmers’ market. Five more words … scavenging in my neighbour’s garden. (I’m not sure if I’m kidding about the last one yet.)  

I actually do have a garden of my own, but it’s in my mother’s backyard in Mississauga, which does fall within the 160-kilometre radius I’m aiming for.

Finding local meat also should also be pretty easy in this area. But it’s something I don’t often buy locally, although I probably should.

A 160-kilometre radius is larger than I originally thought. I am, however, going to try to keep is as close to home as possible.

The difficulty will be with things I don’t usually think about finding locally, like bread, booze, eggs, spices, cooking oils, and dairy products. Coffee and chocolate are completely out, unless I bend the rules to include things produced, but not grown locally. I may have to in the case of coffee since I must continue to be a functioning member of society.  

My vow: not to step foot in a grocery store for two weeks.

Being new to town, I haven’t completely gotten my bearings and figured out where I should be turning to source my meals – so any suggestions are very welcome.

Why eat locally? There are a number of reasons.

It supports local economy and farmers.

It reduces transportation emissions. A recent article in the Globe about Local Food Plus indicates that if 10,000 Toronto families shifted $10 of their weekly grocery spending to local food for a year, it would be the equivalent of taking 908 cars off the road for one year. 

Food grown locally is also more nutritious (because it hasn’t been off the plant as long) and it tastes better. I swear it’s not psychosomatic, it actually does taste better. 

My experiences living and working on organic vegetable farms can be credited with why I developed an interest in supporting a more local food system.

I began volunteering (completely on a whim) two seasons ago and met amazing inspiring young people (and not so young) who were determined to make a difference.

Spending long days planting, weeding, and harvesting food made me appreciate it more. While I was weeding, I didn’t zone out, or resent having to do it – I was simply making room for the food to grow.

I recently read somewhere that local is the new organic, but I am definitely going try to ensure my diet is both local and pesticide-free.

I don’t want to go the rest of my life without eating a mango – they’re my favourite – but I will make a concerted effort to support my area’s farmers, producers, and local business owners.

The challenge starts this Saturday at the Creemore and Collingwood farmers’ markets, so this week I will be busy getting ready and eating up any non-local food in my fridge.