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Dark Days Challenge: Local eating in the dark of winter
Posted
at
6:42 pm
by Jessi Loerch
My gardening is nearly all done for the year. I miss playing in the dirty, but I must admit I don't mind being able to stay inside on the dark, damp days we've been enjoying lately.
Since thing are a little quiet around the garden right now, I'd like to add something a little different to Mudrakers. I'm going to join Laura from the (not so) Urban Hennery, Sarah on Eco Geek and many other bloggers in the Dark Days Challenge.
For the winter, I will make one meal each week based on sustainable, organic, local and ethical ingredients. Then, I'll write about it here and tell you how it's going.
I think eating local food is one of the many steps we can take to protect our planet. It's one of the reasons I enjoy gardening. The Dark Days will certainly be a challenge for me. I've made similar goals in the past. A few years ago, my husband and I agreed to eat only ethically raised meal for the entire year. That was a interesting challenge, but in that case we could always just a vegetarian meal if we couldn't find humanely raised meat. Crafting entire meals out of local foods will force me to be more creative. I'm looking forward to finding new sources of local foods and seeing how other bloggers manage to create their own local meals.
For the parameters of the challenge, I'm defining Washington state as "local." I'll try to keep most of my items to within 150 miles, though. I'm also going to focus on finding organic, sustainable ingredients as often as I can. I'll make exceptions for spices and oils, which can be difficult to get locally. (Also, I would feel absurd buying new spices while perfectly good containers are hanging out in my cupboard.)
So, that's my challenge for the winter. Interested in playing along? Hop on over to Laura's blog and join in.
First local meal
My very first local meal was a simple, quiet affair. I had grand plans to make pasta, but quickly discovered that I couldn't find local pasta. I'm sure it's probably out there, but I've yet to discover it.
I also was feeling a bit under-the-weather the day I was cooking so I decided on simple comfort food. I warmed up a Washington potato. When it was nearly done, I stuck a bit of frozen pesto on the top to melt.
I love making pesto. The basil came from my back yard. My housemate Annie planted it and she must have done something right, the bush went crazy. The garlic in the pesto was from Laura's garden, a nice hard-neck variety with a purple tint to the skin. The oil (the only other thing I add to pesto before I freeze it) was from Italy, I believe. When I make pesto, I freeze it in ice cube trays and then store it an bag or jar. When I want pesto, I can just grab a cube at a time. Very handy.
Back to my potato, though. I added a healthy dollop of butter from Golden Glen Creamery in Bow and called the potato finished. I fried up a slice of ham from Hemplers to go along with it. I don't know much about Hemplers, except they are local. I don't know if they source the meat locally, though. I'll try to figure that out. I know Sarah had the same question.
I finished the meal off with a huge cup of soothing lemon and honey tea. The honey is from Snohomish. The lemon came from Texas and has an interesting story. The lemon is from a tree in Texas. My housemates were married there recently. While there, I admired the lemon tree, and got to hear its fascinating story. The bride's great-grandmother brought the tree to Texas from Italy 100 years ago. The tree is now a glorious thing, large and shiny and covered in lemons. Usually the family has a hard time using up or giving away all the lemons. I was more than happy to bring some home and they have now ripened to a lovely golden color with a sweet, mellow flavor. So, since I was making the trip anyways, I'm counting the lovely lemons as local.
Next week will be a new local challenge. If I get brave I may try making pasta, since I know I can find local flour. Wish me luck.
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