Day 6

This is a picture of the fresh salsa I made for dinner tonight, but more on that later......

Breakfast this morning was yogurt and a peach. I opened the second quart of yogurt that I made on Saturday and - oh joy! - it was actually the right consistency! None of the grittiness that was in the other jar..... The only difference that I can think of was that one accidentally got more starter yogurt than the other. They both got pretty hot in the oven - too hot I think. It was pretty mild yogurt - not a lot of tang, but it sure was nice to have smooth yogurt for a change!

For lunch I scrambled my remaining 3 eggs with the rest of the cooked vegetables from last night and some goat cheese. It would have been great if I hadn't accidentally used way too much salt!

After work I bought:

• 1 really big red bell pepper and 2 jalapenos from Orleans
  
• 1 poblano from Willow Creek
  
• 1 walla-walla onion from Blue Lake
• 2 thin carne asada steaks
• 1 big Klamath Gold heirloom tomato from Orleans
• 1 bunch of cilantro from Blue Lake
• A few more Italian prune plums from Shively
• 1 Anana melon and a few more dapple dandy and flavor queen pluots from Willow Creek
  

I had a yoga class from 5:30 - 7pm, so I had to divide my cooking time. when I got home from work at 4:30 I chopped up the 5 super ripe red tomatoes from yesterday along with the heirloom tomato, the jalapenos, the cilantro, a whole head of garlic, and salt. That's the picture at the beginning of this post. It's delicious, but I'm afraid I made way too much. I had started the beans soaking at lunch time, and now I turned them on and went to yoga.

Before I got home, Johnny got the grill going. It was a beautiful day - perfect from grilling outside. He took care of grilling the meat while I chopped up the onion and the poblano and red bell peppers and skewered them. Grilling the veggies took a while, but we were eating by 8pm. We had grilled peppers and onions, steak, and beans topped with cheese and lots of salsa. Basically a burrito without the tortilla. Johnny added sour cream, lime juice, avocado, and hot sauce to his, but I didn't miss them too much.

This diet isn't nearly as hard as I expected it to be. I've tried dieting to lose weight before, and I just haven't had enough will-power. This is totally different. I think it's the positive thinking of "I'm going to eat something" compared to the negative when you're dieting: "I can't eat something." It definitely takes a lot more planning than I'm used to, but it's not really that hard - at least for the first six days. We'll see what I have to say in a month!

Day 5

This is a picture I took of the rose in my garden this afternoon. It has nothing do to with local food, but it's pretty isn't it?

Dinner last night was leftovers from the night before. How nice not to have to cook an elaborate meal! The eggplant was just as delicious as the night before, and no work required!

Breakfast was a cup of tea with "yogurt," peaches and the last of the blueberries. I can't wait to try and make yogurt again! For lunch I came home and boiled some potatoes and had them with cheese, salt, and pepper. Boring, but still good.

For dinner I made hash browns and omelets. The hash browns turned out pretty good considering I've never made them before. The secret I think is lots of butter! I used purple potatoes, and a few reds and yellows from the mixed 5lb bag I bought on Saturday at the farmers market. The omelets were vegetable (zucchini, broccoli, and green pepper) and cheese. I'm not usually good at flipping omelets, but I did pretty well this time! Johnny made his own with sausage added. He used up the last of the non-local eggs we had in the fridge. I was amazed at the difference in the color between my farmer's market eggs and his store bought ones - I'm not sure if you can see it, but his is the paler one on the right. It all definitely tasted good. I got a bunch of over ripe tomatoes for free from work and diced a few of them over the top of my meal. Fresh ketchup!

Still no word on the wheat. I'll have to call the farmer in Southern Humboldt tomorrow. It's possible that I could go pick some up this weekend....mmm...bread..... I really appreciate in a whole new way the importance of bread in my diet. It's the ultimate convenience food!

Day 4

Here's the finished sauce from last night. Mmmm it was delicious! the tomatoes cooked down for a few hours. I sauteed an onion and some ground beef in butter and added it to the sauce along with basil and garlic (and salt of course!)

I dipped slices of eggplant in egg and fried them in butter in the skillet till they were browned and then layered them with sauce and goat cheese. It baked for about 20 minutes and it was done. So good! More of a stew than a casserole, but who cares? We had it with salad and were quite satisfied.

Breakfast this morning was more of my pseudo-yogurt with blueberries and a peach. For lunch I came home from work and we had some left over tomato meat sauce that I'd saved mixed with the rest of the beans from Saturday night. Italian Chili! Could have used some corn bread, but still, I wasn't complaining.

A lady at work today gave me an article from the Redwood Times all about a guy in Southern Humboldt who's harvesting wheat! I'd certainly be willing to drive down to pick it up if he would sell me some. I know one of the farmers quoted in the article, so maybe I'll call him and check it out. Apparently there's a variety of wheat called Sonora that was brought to California by the Spanish in the 1820s and is very well adapted to our climate. And get this - Humboldt County wheat took the first prize at the 1920 World's Fair in Chicago! Amazing! I feel like I'm a wheat detective. I'll find some yet!

Day 3

I'm realizing today how much work this is going to be! The last few days I feel like I've been in the kitchen at least three times more that I'm used to - And Johnny's even doing most of the dishes!

For lunch yesterday I had a salad. Unfortunately I discovered the our fridge is getting to cold and that most of the spring mix had frozen into a big chunk. I salvaged what I could and made a salad with the cold beans from the night before and a tomato. I used the dressing I'd just made. It was ok. Not spectacular, but deffineately edible and satisfying. I had some watermelon afterward and felt pretty full.

Dinner was delicious - wild salmon fillets and roasted potatoes all cooked with butter and garlic; a spinach, tomato, and basil salad (with the roasted pepper dressing,) and red wine. Deffinately the best meal we've had yet. Here's a picture of my plate.

It's disconcerting cooking like this since there's so many things that I would usually add to recipes that I can't. It's an excercise in simplicity!

Today I had to work, so I was up pretty early and had yogurt, blueberries, and the remaining two plums, with a drizzle of honey on top. This was the first time I tried the yogurt, and it was a little wierd - almost more like super fine curd cottage cheese than yogurt. It didn't smell or taste bad, so I ate it anyway. Once again I hope I don't die! I'll try to make more next weekend maybe. I brought some of the dried mint and lemon balm to work and had tea. The mix is really quite good!

I was pretty hungry by lunch time - I can usually nibble on something at work, but my options were severly limited so I just came home a little early for lunch. I heated up the leftover potatoes from dinner, and grated some cheese on them. I also cut up a tomato and ate it just plain with salt. I finished off last piece of watermelon and went back to work quite satisfied.

I'm realizing how hard it is to really feel satisfied after a meal when there's no grains in it- Thank god for potatoes!

After work I bought a few things: spring mix to replace the frozen stuff, a few Dapple Dandy and Flavor Queen pluots from Willow Creek, a bunch of ripe tomatoes from Orleans , and a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc from Willow Creek. I usually drink red wine only, but I usually drink beer when it's hot, and it's been hot, so....white wine it is!

I got home and cut up the tomatoes to start a sauce for dinner tonight. It' simmering on the stove right now.

Day 2

I'm almost at the end of Barbara Kingsolver's book Animal Vegetable, Miracle. She and her family undertake a year of local food, not quite as strict as I'm trying to be, but a year is a long time! At the end of the year she writes:

"....in India it's sometimes considered a purification ritual to go home and spend a year eating everything from one place - ideally, even to grow it yourself. I liked this name for what we had done: a purification ritual, to cultivate health and gratitude..."

Above is a picture of the rosehips on the rose in our front yard. They sure are beautiful!

Last night we grilled carne asada, some vegetables, and had them with the cranberry beans, cheese, and pico de gallo (tomato, onion, and Serrano pepper.) Since he's not taking the local challenge, Johnny added sour cream from Oregon and lime juice from Mexico to his meal. I was a little jealous, but it still all tasted really good. The beans were surprisingly creamy. I'm used to using beans from a can, and I could really taste the difference! We had watermelon for desert - a small dry farmed Crimson Sweet from Blue Lake - it was so sweet it was really hard to believe that it was truly all natural sugar!

As we sat outside eating, we roasted 3 big bell peppers, 1 red, 1 yellow, and one orange, on the grill. Once they had cooled I put them in a plastic bag in the fridge. I also took the herbs (except the spearmint, which wasn't quite dry yet) that had been drying on the porch and put them in glass jars for tea.

The yogurt was done around bed time, so I drained off the whey and put it in the fridge. The sour cream was still showing no signs of coagulation, so I left it out in the hopes that it would do something over night.

This morning for breakfast I had peppermint lemon balm tea with a few plums and scrambled eggs with a half a green bell pepper and cheese.

At 10AM, the sour cream was still not really thick at, but it tasted a little sour. I think I got it too hot and killed some of the culture when I was trying to regulate the oven temperature by turning it on and off. I decided to use it in the salad dressing I was planning anyway. Hopefully it won't kill me!

I made the salad dressing in our food processor. The roasted bell peppers from last night, 2 grilled Serranos that we also cooked last night, the sourish cream, basil, some red wine, and salt. This is as good as I could get without oil and vinegar! It actually tastes pretty good, sweet and spicy with a bit of a tang from the cream and the wine. Here's a picture of the finished product.

We'll see if I still like it after finishing the whole jar!

The rosehips and spearmint are back on the porch drying, and it's time for lunch!

Day 1

So far so good! I got up this morning and had a few plums and a glass of milk (I'd forgotten how good plain ole' cow milk really is!) and then headed down the hill to the farmer's market. I could have walked, but I figured I was going to buy too much to carry the 1/2 mile or so home, and I was right! Here's what I got:

• 1 Pint of Blueberries from McKinleyville - Their season is practically over, but there were still some for sale.
• 5 Peaches from Willow Creek
• 1 5lb Bag of mixed potatoes and about 3lb of devina potatoes from Arcata
• About 4 lb of cranberry (dry) beans from Arcata
  
• 1 dozen eggs from Bayside
• 4 colored bell peppers, 2 Italian sweet peppers , and 2 eggplant from Hoopa
• 2 Walla Walla onions; a bunch each of peppermint, spearmint, and lemonbalm; and 1 bunch of basil all from Orleans.

I also stopped at the co-op and picked up a small tub of organic sour cream (to use as a starter) and some whipping cream from Fortuna. All together I spent about $45.00 and filled up two big bags of groceries. I felt like I needed a cart! Hopefully this will all last me through the week. I can always get local veggies, meat, and dry beans at the co-op if I need to.

When I got home I started the yogurt and sour cream. The sour cream was really easy: I just dumped a half tablespoon of sour cream in a cup of whipping cream, and put it in the over. You're supposed to keep it a about 150 degrees, which is hard cause my oven doesn't want to go that low, so I turned it up to 250 and then off after a few minutes. I figure I can do that all day and keep it around 150. The yogurt was pretty much the same deal, except I had to sterilize the milk first by raising it up to 180 degrees. I made 1 cup of sour cream and 2 quarts of yogurt. Hopefully it all turns out! Right now it's hard for me to believe it!

I also put the peppermint, spearmint, and lemon balm out in the sun to dry on cookie sheets, and I picked some rose hips from the front yard and put them out to dry - they're all for tea. I definitely need something hot to drink in the morning!

For lunch I had a few of the Devina potatoes (they're a super buttery gold variety) with cheddar cheese, butter, a few chives from the front porch, salt, and pepper. Delicious!

So now I've got a fridge full of food, I've got beans soaking for dinner, and I feel like I actually might make it through a month!

The Last Supper

My last day on non-local food. I've been making a point to eat at all my favorite restaurants because I know it'll be October before I have the chance again.

I have to admit that I'm getting cold feet about this project already, and asking myself if I am truly crazy. September may seem like a really easy month to go local, especially for someone like me who is on a first name basis with many of the farmers in the area, but there are definite challenges that I will have to deal with.

The two biggest problems are grains and oils. As far as I know there is no olive or vegetable oil produced in Humboldt County. I'll be using butter and other animal fats exclusively. I was hopeless on the grains front too, but by a stroke of luck I learned of a farmer who trialed a few acres of wheat this year and it sounds like he may be willing to part with some wheat berries for me to grind into flour. The wheat still has to be cleaned, and as it's the busiest time of the farmer's year right now, I'm not certain when I'll get it. For now my starches will come in the form of potatoes, beans, and winter squash.

I bought a bunch of local produce, dairy, and meat at the co-op today after work:

• A gallon of milk from Humboldt Creamery to make into yogurt
• Cheddar cheese from Lolita
• Chevre from Cyprus Grove
• 6 beautiful tomatoes, 2 zucchini, 2 humongous green bell peppers, and an eggplant from Orleans
• Broccoli, spinach, and a watermelon from Blue Lake
• Spring mix from Bayside
• Italian Prune plums from Shivley
• 2 Humboldt grass fed steaks thinly cut for grilling
• 1lb of Humboldt grass fed ground beef
• 2 large salmon fillets

Hopefully this plus a few things I'll pick up at the farmers market tomorrow morning will get me through most of a week.