One week later.....

I'm going to finish up a few thoughts about my month of local, and then move on to my new blog: The Good Food Muse (www.thegoodfoodmuse.blogspot.com.) I've found that I've become addicted to blogging about the food I eat. It'll be nice not to feel obligated to write every day, but I enjoy taking pictures and making some sort of record of the wonderful food I cook and eat every day. I've just started a little vegetable garden in my front yard, so I'll write about that to.

So what am I taking away from my month of local food?

• I feel so much better on a non-wheat, non sugar diet! The difference was really amazing. I managed to lose a little weight (something I haven't successfully done for years) and feel great all month. I don't think I realized how good I felt - when you're digestive system is working perfectly, you don't always stop to notice I guess. I definitely noticed a change when I went back on the non-local diet though. I don't want to go into too much detail about the inner workings of my digestive system, but things are generally more sluggish, and I feel heavier. Sugar is especially making me feel weird - shaky and light headed. I guess because my body got used to life without it, re-introducing it was that much harder. Also, I've realized how little my body likes wheat. I think the lack of wheat in my month of local food really contributed to how good I felt. Especially when you consider how much energy flour takes to produce (threshing, separating wheat from chaff, grinding, etc.) potatoes just make more sense anyway. Not that I think wheat is all bad - but I've really realized how much we lean on it unnecessarily.
  

• Eating local in September in Humboldt is not that hard. I really didn't suffer in the least. The hardest part was getting the energy and imagination to cook every night, but once I got over that it was easy. Leftovers are key, that's for sure. It looks like maybe the co-op will do a month long local challenge next summer - I can't wait to do it again and help others realize how easy this really is once you make the commitment.
  

• I really love having a connection to the farmers that grow the food I eat. This is almost a spiritual thing for me. I talk to a lot of the farmers daily through my work, so I'm especially lucky in this regard. I not only know many farmers pretty well, but I know their relationships with each other. I could have written a poem about each dish: who grew it, what the relationships between all the farmers who grew the food is, and what the relationship between all the flavors is. I really felt that I was collaborating with the farmers in some way by taking the food that they grow, blending it with the food of other farmers, and taking it that last step from raw ingredients to delicious meals. It was a sharing of food production rather than a one sided give and take. For me, I think the next step would be to only eat food frown by people I know.....

That's all I can think of now. I'm sure I'll write more about all of this in my new blog!

This is my first official day of non-local. I thought it would feel really great to have the freedom to eat whatever I want, but really I'm finding myself already missing the local diet.....

I'll backup and chronicle my last few days. I haven't been taking pictures - I hope if anyone is reading this that it's not too boring.

Sunday night we had my bread with butter and I made a veggie stew with a shallot, 2 zucchini, sugar snap peas, Shitake mushrooms, a Sweet Italian peppers, a green bell pepper, a spoonful of sour cream, and the rest of the tomato sauce I made about a week ago. It worked really well to just make the sauce and then keep it in the fridge for random uses - I'll have to remember that.

The bread is VERY dense. I think it did rise a little, but not much. Other than that it's quite good - with just a hint of sourness. I think maybe my cheff wasn't quite strong enough. My guess is that it didn't stay warm enough in our house for optimal growth... I did save some of the cheff to try it again next week. Now that I've made such a complicated bread, I'm excited to try some simpler recipes. There is definitely a great satisfaction in finally eating the bread that was a month in the making. I'm glad that I did without it for so long though - I proved that I could be quite well nourished and satisfied without wheat of any kind.

Monday morning I had the usual breakfast - a pear, yogurt, and honey. I cut open one of the passion fruit and mixed it in - it added an extra flavor dynamic that was quite good. Lunch was the usual boiled potatoes, with some of the stew from the night before mixed in, and a little more sour cream.

Monday night I made omelets. For a filling I used leftover veggies with some fresh sugar snap peas and cheddar cheese. We've been using the same huge block of cheddar I got the second week of September - I'm amazed that it's not moldy! We made toast with my bread, and I had it with butter and apple butter. I also made a fruit salad with a Comice pear, an apple, figs from the market, a peach, yogurt, and honey. It was good, but not quite as good as the fruit salad I made earlier in the month.....

Tuesday was my official last day. I didn't really have time to go all out on anything - I ate pretty much the same things I had been all along. Breakfast was the last of my yogurt, honey, pear, and passion fruit. Lunch was boiled potatoes with the last of my sour cream and the few veggies that were left over from the stew and the omelets.

After work I went to a yoga class and didn't get home till 7. I had bought some "stew" beef on Monday after work - basically beef cut into chunks. I cooked that, set it aside and in the same pan cooked a shallot, an onion, two russet potatoes, two broccoli stems from long long ago, a Pimento Pepper, and the rest of the Shitake mushrooms. I added the beef, lots of red wine and and little water and cooked it till the potatoes were tender. I was aiming for a beef stew, but I didn't have any stock, so it wasn't as saucy as a stew should be. It was good anyway with wine, garlic butter, and bread. The beef was a bit tough, but definitely edible.

And that's it. The month is over. I feel kind of let down - I think I'm going to miss eating this way. I certainly don't feel any elation at being able to eat whatever I want..... I think what I realized more than anything this month was that eating locally is not a hardship at all (at least here in Humboldtin September.) It's just as tasty and fulfilling as eating exotic things, it just a little limited, so you have to have more imagination and time.

The rain this weekend wiped out many of our local tomatoes, and other things are winding down in a big way, so even if I wanted to I couldn't keep eating nothing but local....Preservation is something I haven't focused on at all, although it's probably not too late to can some spaghetti sauce or salsa...

I'll keep blogging here for the next few days as I think about these things more.....