Blog Update!
For those of you not following me on Facebook, as of the Summer of 2019 I've moved to Central WA, to a tiny mountain town of less than 1,000 people.

I will be covering my exploits here in the Cascades, as I try to further reduce my impact on the environment. With the same attitude, just at a higher altitude!

Friday, July 13, 2007

Local Food Month update

Local Food Month - July 2007Well, I'll be the first to admit that things aren't going so well this week for Local Food Month. Between the near 100 degree temperatures (yes, I know, it's 20 degrees above normal around here) and my husband's tooth woes, we are sorely lacking in the dinner making department.

Case in point - Wednesday night's dinner consisted of Life cereal with the kid's milk and a banana. It was just too hot to eat or cook. And, as you can see, it wasn't exactly local. None of it. I had great hopes of grilling some local chicken teats and roasting the turnips and beets that are begging to be eaten before they get so big they get up and wander out of the garden. But the thought of turning on the oven and standing in front of the grill just didn't do it for me.

Last night was a bit of an improvement with garlic and herbs from the garden. I hope you all are faring better than I...

12 comments:

Ananda Devika said...

I've been doing OK - my garden is finally spitting out zucchini, summer squash and peppers, plus the farmer's market finally brought out canteloupe!
I agree though - sometimes it's just too hot to cook! I succumbed to some not-remotely-local sushi last weekend...

QT said...

All you can do is try, right? I have tried to make one meal each day be 100% local. Even that can be challenging!

Catherine said...

I'm about 30 minutes north of you so I literally feel your pain. It looks like it's going to be cooler today though, hallelujah.

Cheryl said...

Ugh, I hear you on the heat thing! It's much nicer this morning though.

Theresa said...

We set relatively modest goals for the month and haven't been doing too bad in terms of those criteria. The garden is really starting to produce some nice lettuce and spinach now, so local salads are easy to do. We've bought virtually all of our fresh produce from the local farmers markets,which has been a really nice experience. Some things have been harder to give up - husband does love his grapefruit from South Africa, but he has cut down his consumption in half, probably.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the honesty Crunchy. And on that Chicken Teat idea: Exactly when did the marketing geniuses invent the concept of avian breasts?
As is well known, only mammals have them. Perhaps the blame lies with the poets.

Unknown said...

every step of this journey is a learning one... even the steps when we aren't so local. we are still thinking about the food & sometimes buying things that aren't local are good too (just in different ways) for example people have jobs and can feed their families and keep roofs over their heads b/c what you bought to eat wasn't so local - kwim???
we are doing pretty good on our goals so far, but have had our fair share of bumps along the way. i had to laugh when i went grocery shopping, b/c not only was i looking at ingredients, but i was looking at where the items were produced/manufactored/farmed @ and etc...
this has been a great challenge so far and one that i believe will always stick with me.

Anonymous said...

Wow things sure are different down and over here in Florida. Our growing season has come to a screeching halt. All I have left growing is a few cherry tomatoes, eggplant, and blackeyed peas. I have frozen corn, tomatoes, soup, jams, and spaghetti sauce. All the winter sguash is harvested and waiting for use. The only local produce I can buy anymore is watermelon, eggplant, okra, and peanuts. I have discovered that when you eat local you have to ask "what do I need to make for dinner?" and not "What do I want to have for dinner."

Anonymous said...

I hear you, Crunchy! It's been over 100 almost every day this month and my desire to cook has plummeted. The solar oven keeps the heat out of the kitchen but requires me to traipse in and out of the heat to use it.

We've been maintaining a 50-75% local meal plan overall probably. Making more from scratch has been time-consuming and wearing. For instance, I just spent the last several hours processing a huge watermelon for eating and pickling the rind. I now have no energy left to make the planned labor-intensive dinner. :(

Deb G said...

I live a little farther north from the Seattle area, where we had a record high. Whine and whimper about the heat! I got lucky though, I had cooked a veggie bread thing on Sunday and cooked some chicken in the crock pot overnight on Monday, so I had stuff to nibble on during the week. However, in the eating healthy goal I messed up 'cause I have to confess on Wednesday I had ice cream for dinner - but it was local :)

Isle Dance said...

It's really helping me to go more local and more raw at the same time. Last night I ate a bag of bright red local organic raw cherries. It was dinner and dessert! Okay...I had a few more things, but it's been much easier than I'd anticipated by combining local and raw. Of course, I'm going through processed sugar detox right now, so ugh!

Anonymous said...

I realize this comment is late in relation to the original post; however, I just stumbled upon this blog after trying to find out more information about eating local. What a great site! I am like many a working mom who lives in the city (Seattle). I just read Omnivores Dilema, while we have shopped (inconsistently)the farmers markets in the fall and I usually do some berry picking in the summer followed by canning and freezing, I have never really considered the whole local eating thing. It is very clear to me now what I want for our family and my kids future. We now buy all our meat from farms that sell pasture raised animals in an organic sustainable way (we like Thundering Hooves and Skagit Valley), have a garden and try to buy local veggies and fruit. Our challenges are avocados, seafood, oils, flour, sugar coffee and chocolate. What I have decided is that there has always been some trade of food (especially spices) across the countries. The issue becomes when you are buying something that comes from a distance when it is also grown down the street. So, that is what we are trying to do. I would rather support the livlihood of the local farmers than big business. Anyways, I will enjoy keeping up with this site. Teri