Local Food Adventures of an Apartment Dweller

Harvesting -

2008-07-07T22:25:00.000-07:00

It's time for the annual joint harvesting of the golden yarrow and the lavender -

-Baskets of the stuff is cut and trimmed and hung on the wall - for future tea, sachets, shortbread, tub-teas, etc... This is the biggest harvest of the season, with a smaller one or two later on. For several days the house smells of lavender (much to my kid's dismay).

Still picking strawberries and loads of borage and chamomile.

And today - the first bowl of raspberries of the season.

Strawberry Decadence -

2008-07-01T11:28:00.000-07:00

How many ways can one enjoy the strawberries you picked this morning? This is my favorite way this week -

Toast two slices of Apple Strudel Bread (purchased at the local Yakima Fruit Market) and butter.

Slice the larger berries and scatter on top.

Take the smaller berries and the very ripe ones and mash with a fork and spoon on top.

Drizzle the entire thing with sweet balsamic vinaigrette*.

Yum! Strawberry shortcake, eat your heart out.

*Sweet Balsamic Vinaigrette

3/4 Cup Olive Oil
1/2 Cup sugar
1/4 Cup Balsamic Vinegar
1 tsp. salt

Whisk or shake until the sugar dissolves.
My favorite dressing to use on fruit and green salads (try with Romain lettuce, strawberries, mangoes and onion)

Summer is finally here

2008-06-28T16:37:00.001-07:00

Looks like summer has finally come to the Pacific Northwest, and with it, our local produce choices seem to increase almost daily. Over the past couple of week I've gone to the Lake Forest Park Farmers' Market on Sunday afternoons, and it's just getting bigger and bigger.

A couple of weeks ago the big thing was peas, a big spring crop in the Northwest. For the first time in my life, I bought English peas and shucked them so I could make a lovely braised pea and mushroom dish. Served it alongside Salmon caught just two days before I bought it from the Washington fisherman and his family at the same market.

And finally, fruit! Cherries are big right now. I bought a pound of those, and a pound of apriums (apricot + plum) this past weekend. Delicious! Definitely going back for more.

This week the big deal is local strawberries. They had been delayed by our freakishly cold spring, but they finally made it. Over at Yakima Fruit Market, they sold out within hours the first day they got them in. We have been waiting for these luscious beauties. Today, my own balcony strawberry pot yielded the above tiny bowlful of the sweetest strawberries I have ever tasted. And there's lots more fruit waiting to ripen. Not bad for a container garden.

Tomorrow is the Strawberry Festival at the market. Can't wait!

I think I'm going to have to make jam this year…

…if I can stop eating them. :)

Chickens - at home!

2008-06-28T10:27:00.001-07:00

Now that I'm home for a bit, I was finally able to go retrieve my chickens from their fostering place a couple of nights ago (thanks again Suzy!!!)

These chicks had never been in a coop before - so it has necessitated physically putting them in and locking the door at night for a few nights until they get used to it. Here they are rather dubiously examining their new abode.

Also, never really having been in a 'yard' before, they were quite cautious about leaving the coop for the first time and coming out to explore (they've totally gotten over that already).

The yard has branches and stumps to roost on. Lots of dirt to scratch in (I'm beginning to wonder if they're going to dig holes big enough to go under the enclosure fencing), their food, water, and 'treats' from the garden and the kitchen.

My other animals are absolutely entranced. Jack, the black lab, keeps running around the coop - tail waving and barking his 'playplayplay' bark. Mia, on the other hand, can hardly keep from stealth-attack mode (undeterred as she is by the chicken wire separating them. I think she's going to have chicken wire shaped bruises on her head if she keeps this up).

All in all, they seem happy and content with their lot. We're working on naming them now that we can watch their personalities. They're young enough (2 months old) that they still 'peep' instead of cluck, and they don't have all of their adult plumage yet, so there is more growing to do.

I suspect Mia thinks they should be called McNugget. :-)

Early summer berries -

2008-06-24T20:39:00.000-07:00

Picked my first bowl of strawberries of the season today -

It's always interesting, after spending a bit of time away, to see what has happened in your yard without you there watching.... Some things didn't get watered as much as I would have wished. The weeds grew regardless. Some things are finally sprouted and look like they are growing nicely. Some things never did come up...

Spent a bit of time outside doing some basic clean-up. Got the lawn mowed, the gardens and pots watered, some weeds pulled, some lanky vines tied to their posts - and a few things harvested....

Fresh-picked strawberries for dessert tonight...

Finally, the Sun!

2008-06-15T08:49:00.000-07:00

various lettuces I planted back in May before the sun went into hiding again

Reading over Tara's recent posts, I've realized a few things. First off, I'm so jealous of her yard! Her wonderful garden and her beautiful chickens! How can an apartment dweller like myself compete?! Following on that thought I remember that was my purpose in starting this blog - sharing how I do go about trying to lead a more locavore lifestyle, even without a yard, and within a budget. So often I see people saying they can't follow a locavore diet and/or eat organic food because it's too expensive, and I want to show that healthy eating can indeed be done on a budget.

And lastly, I really need to post more often.

Well, the sun has finally made an appearance here in the Seattle area, and it's making me feel all sorts of rejuvenated, and I feel a renewed commitment to keeping up with this blog. In the near future look for posts on my little container garden, the farmers' markets I've been attending, books I've been reading, recipes I've been trying…

Talk to you soon!
-Angela

Teen-age chickens -

2008-06-13T00:47:00.001-07:00

Got to visit my chickens one last time tonight before my Big Adventure. They'll come 'home' to their nearly finished coop (it just needs painted) after my return.

Here is my 'dark blue-lace Wyandotte' - which is apparently no such thing! Looks an awful lot like a barred rock to me... (I did find reference to a blue-barred Wyandotte online.... Maybe it's that?)

The auracana - with just a hint of the 'ear muffs' beginning..

And the other 'blue-lace' - ha! She is now barely dusted with grey, with a small sprinkling of dark speckles... No sign of lacing in sight. I'm not impressed with labeling of chicken-breeds-as-chicks at the store where I bought them...

We'll see if they morph into anything else as they continue to mature...

My friend who is hosting these for me has a number of lovely chickens, including a flock of tiny, rare suramas. Here is the handsome little rooster. Don't you love the shape of this guy? The large, upright tail which begins nearly at the base of his neck....

No roosters for me!

Unremitting grey...

2008-06-06T11:54:00.001-07:00

(Views from the studio window)

We have had nothing but grey skies and drizzle/rain for nearly a week. It's June! I feel silly turning the heat back on, but the temps don't make it out of the 50s and it's chilly in the house.

I've been fighting a cold as well, so the rain makes it too daunting to want to do any more work on the gardens... I just sit here bleakly - seeing the things that need done, having no emotional or physical energy to do them...

The constant watering is good for the seeds I put in, I suppose. You can see a haze of green in patches - for the things that it is not too cool for germination. Not much growth beyond that though until the temperatures pick up a bit.

Unless you are a Jerusalem artichoke! I tried really hard to clean ALL of them out of this bed this spring (they are relocated to a more appropriate growing venue.) An exercise in futility, apparently - see the thick, lush strip of pointy leafed green next to the fence? That's apparently what I missed. (You wouldn't guess that I dug up buckets of tubers this spring. The amount growing is just as heavy as last year.) If/when it ever dries or warms up a bit, I will have to see if I can make another attempt to remove them from here.

The thing I am the saddest about is all the blooming things (English thyme above). I have seen fewer bees and other pollinating insects than ever this year, and the rain makes it even more difficult for them to make their rounds. From what I can tell thus far, less than half of my cherries and blueberries were fertilized this spring, for instance.

Would it be too much to ask for a bit of sunshine?

Works in progress -

2008-06-01T20:49:00.001-07:00

Here is a view of my new, partially completed chicken coop and run - built under a large fir tree in the back corner of my yard. The dog house, which is being re-tooled as a coop, has a bit more remodeling and repainting necessary..

It is nestled by the back fence, by the composters (and wheelbarrow full of last year's greens ready to add to them).

I added a couple of new raised beds this spring - which needed more dirt than I had at hand - so another project-in-progress - we dug out the foundation for my pending, proposed greenhouse...

So, as June 1st, I think a record for *late*, this is the state of the raised beds. The far back left is still waiting to be cleaned out and replanted, but the next three have starts and seeds in the ground. The foreground three on the right are (from left to right) new strawberries, old strawberry bed and raspberry bed. (And what you can see in the front right is the kiwi trellis).

And even with this ridiculously chilly weather, punctuated by only a few hot days thus far this year, here's hoping that there is enough summer to come for harvesting.

The 'Rise of the Locavore' article

2008-05-28T12:02:00.000-07:00

Came across this great BusinessWeek article validating the local food movement over at eatlocalchallenge.com.

One of my favorite items is that after a century of decline, local farms have increased by 20% in the past 6 years!

Backyard Salad Foraging -

2008-05-25T23:56:00.001-07:00

For dinner tonight, I took a stroll around the wild backyard gardens to see what I could harvest for a salad. Since my schedule the last year or so only allowed the most limited gardening time, much of what is out there is left over from last year (only this weekend have I finally gotten some seeds in the ground!), much of which is currently flowering.

I, therefore, opted for a bitter greens, herb and flower salad. Perfect for today since I hope to pull out the bulk of the bolting, blooming things tomorrow.

Tore up the leaves into bit sized pieces and separated the flowers from their stems and/or calyxes as appropriate. Added a bit of store-bought, organic Romaine to temper the strong flavors, drizzle on a bit of sweet, balsamic vinaigrette and, wallah! Fresh, foraged veggie goodness.

(Safety tip: Do not talk on the phone and snip chives with very sharp kitchen scissors at the same time if you are too hungry to multi-task!)

[Salad ingredients:
Greens- watercress, lemon balm, chives, marjoram, creeping gold oregano, climbing spinach, baby swiss chard, rustic arugula, sorrel and some spicy Chinese greens.
Flowers - borage, pinks, thyme blossoms, corn salad, violas, johny-jump-ups, calendula, arugula, chervil, sweet cicely, bok choy, and rosemary.]

Chicken update -

2008-05-23T00:29:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, they looked like this:

Now they are looking like gawky adolescents -

This is the blue-lace Wyandotte on the far left of the above picture (with a suspiciously large comb for a supposedly sexed pullet.... hmmm.....)

Here's the auracana from the center (the flat heads always feel a bit reminiscent of buzzards. Or dinosaurs. Or something not so chickenish...)

And this is also (supposedly) a blue-lace Wyandotte - although at the moment, I'm hard pressed to believe it. They are still being fostered with some other chicks at my POBL friend's coop - where they have all the needed amenities until they are large enough to move to my backyard (where the coop and run are a still a work-in-progress).

This punk-mohawked, silver-laced Polish is not one of mine - but I thought s/he was hilarious -especially at this stage before her head feathers grow fully in...

By sometime next month, they will be large enough to live with me, and well on their way to their mature, adult plumage...

If you want to see a gorgeous, ridiculous, mind-blowing, photographic expose on the wonders of this decorative fowl, check out "Extraordinary Chickens", by Stephen Green-Armytage.

...and speaking of flowers...

2008-05-17T13:52:00.001-07:00

Eating flowers is one of my culinary delights. I try to grow pretty much every variety that I know you can eat (90% of what grows in my yard is edible or medicinal). With our current heat wave - the news dubbing it 'from March to August in less than a day' - flowers seem cooling and refreshing.

Last night's dinner consisted of a fruit-filled green salad with a sweet balsamic dressing, and herbed spaghetti squash (above) garnished liberally with just-picked borage, thyme and rosemary blossoms.

Yum!

The weather made me do it!

2008-05-16T15:21:00.001-07:00

Bok choy from Lake Forest Park Farmers' Market waiting to be cooked.

This past Sunday was opening day for Lake Forest Park's Farmers' Market. As you can imagine, it wasn't bursting with produce yet, but there were lots of good greens, as well as some onions, potatoes and apples. Tasted some lovely goat cheese (yesterday's milk, today's apricot & almond cheese - yum!) that I will buy next time, and bought some fresh mozerella from Golden Glen Creamery and some tayberry jam from Blue Cottage Jams and some wild plum jam from Tiny's Organic, and the bok choy above from Full Circle Farms. I also bought some mustard flowers and arugula flowers from them. Sunday night I stir fried the bok choy with some garlic, a little sesame oil, the mustard flowers and buckwheat soba noodles. So good! And very simple, too.

Good start to the week. But then I came down with a nasty cold. Made it very difficult to want to cook anything, so we ate a lot of takeout this week.

And then today, the temperature hit over 80 degrees! After months of nothing over 60 (and that was a heat wave), sun and heat! It's amazing. I feel so energetic, and everyone seems in a good mood. And the desire to eat fruit and vegetables nearly overwhelmed me when I went to the Yakima Fruit Market this afternoon. So, (and I blame this all on the weather) I filled up my basket with produce from California. Zucchini, peppers, tomatoes, strawberries, blueberries - even some peaches. I just couldn't stop myself. It was all too good to resist. And I can't wait to dig in. I feel like I should feel guilty about this, but I just don't. Guess I'm still caught up in the hot weather fever.

Strawberry blossoms on my balcony!

Spent some time out on our balcony with the cats and my little garden this afternoon too. I used to hate our balcony, because it overlooks a major freeway so it's really quite loud. Now, because of my little garden, I love it and find that I enjoy sitting out there watching the plants wave around in the breeze, and the cats seem to enjoy it too. The photo is of one layer of my strawberry pot. Look at all the future berries!

Local Food of the Month Dinner

2008-05-13T17:25:00.000-07:00

Lately it seems that when I get together with my friends, I often cannot contain my enthusiasm for local and real food. Fortunately, some of my friends have found my unchecked ramblings interesting enough to catch their interest as well, and this past Saturday evening a few of us gathered for what we hope will be the first of many local foods of the month dinners. We had a really great night.

Being early May in western Washington, the themes for the evening were rhubarb and asparagus, which are abundant right now. And we tried to keep all the ingredients as local as possible too. For the most part we did pretty well.

It was all very yummy, but my favorites of the evening were the starters of roasted rhubarb & honey and goat cheese/pear compote and goat cheese on toasted whole grain bread, and the asparagus, baby greens and pear salad pictured above. My contribution to the evening was a rhubarb & red lentil dal, and a rhubarb & apple crisp for dessert. I also brought a bottle of Cave B Sauvignon Blanc which went particularly well with the asparagus dishes. Another friend brought a bottle from Mt. Vernon Winery. We are definitely not lacking for good local wine.

Mother's Day for my Garden -

2008-05-11T19:57:00.000-07:00

My family knows what I like. And want. Crocs for working outside in the garden (I hate tying shoes!) and an air pump for my wheelbarrow tires!

Yesterday, we went to Country Village (where I used to teach drawing classes) to shop and check out their Mother's Day Flower and Garden Show (complete with a Neil Diamond tribute band playing in the courtyard). They had a nice selection of local and native plants, along with heirloom varieties of vegetable starts. If it would start warming up here, I would get these poor tomatoes in the ground!

My deck herbs don't seem to mind the lingering chill. I have four planter boxes and 5 or 6 pots of herbs going most of the time. Everything I use for tea or cooking is right off my kitchen door. Much of it is still harvestable through our mild winters. Am just awaiting temperatures to climb above 50 degrees at night so that I can pot lemon verbena, basil and lemon grass.

Maybe by Father's Day.

Thanks Angela.

2008-05-07T23:17:00.000-07:00

After discussing our mutual local-food interests, Angela and I agreed it would be useful to share a space to discuss our attempts at more healthy and sustainable eating and to share resources since we live in such close proximity. So THANK YOU for allowing me to use this venue (and to be able to keep these topics from spilling all over my art blog. Which, incidentally, several of the most recent posts apply here - from backyard spring soup, to imminent backyard chickens!)

Local Friends

2008-05-07T15:30:00.000-07:00

Marlowe is very interested in all these new green things on the balcony.

Just got back from my friend Tara's house, and more to the point, her garden! She had a bunch of herbs out there and gave me a box full of seedlings to attempt to grow on my balcony. Thank you, Tara! I am also inviting her to join me as a contributor to this blog. We live about 5 miles from each other, and we're both getting into this whole local food, real food thing, and we're both learning so many things that we thought it might be a good idea to pool our resources here.

And a few weeks ago I received a wonderful surprise package from my friend Ellen, who is also trying to live more in tune with the environment. (You might remember her from this brilliant post.) In it was a box of Chuao chocolates from Tuscan chocolatier Amedei. Wow!!! These chocolates are truly amazing! She also included this Food & Wine article about the company, which is a great read, and a true testament that the best business practices can also be those that are best for the planet, the workers, and the consumers. Thank you, Ellen!

These women also happen to be wonderful artists, and you can see their work here and here.

Local Asparagus!

2008-04-25T13:44:00.000-07:00

Roasted asparagus (front) and rhubarb compote (back) which we used on both the chicken we had for dinner, and the homemade vanilla ice cream we had for dessert. The rhubarb was from a friend's garden.

In "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle", Barbara Kingsolver's family decided to start their year of eating locally when the first asparagus appeared as the herald of Spring. By that accounting, Spring is finally here! Bought my first bunch of Washington grown asparagus earlier this week. Above you can see it fresh from roasting in the oven with a little olive oil, salt and pepper, my favorite way to eat asparagus. Yum! I managed to resist the temptation of the California asparagus that hit the stores weeks ago, and am glad I did. It was well worth the wait.

I picked up two more bunches at the Yakima Fruit Market this morning. One bunch will be cooked exactly as above, but I think I might use the other bunch to make mushroom and asparagus pizza tonight!

My cat Marlowe is intrigued by this new addition to the patio.

While at Yakima Fruit Market (alternately known by locals as "The Yak"), I also picked up this lovely cherry tomato plant, which started its life Snohomish County. I wanted to see if I could grow something on our patio, and whenever I told anyone that I was frustrated because it doesn't get as much sun as most edible plants seem to like, their response was always "try cherry tomatoes." So, there they are. Wish me luck. I plan to get some herbs sometime soon too.

(I have to confess that even though I did resist the temptation of California asparagus, I wasn't able to block out the siren call of California strawberries. I love berries so much! They had to travel over 1200 miles to get here! I also got a couple of avocados, that probably traveled even further. Just needed to remind myself of that.)

Happy Earth Day!

2008-04-22T16:46:00.001-07:00

These are my new "Stop Global Warming" eco-sneaks from Simple. Not only does Simple make really cute and comfortable shoes, they do it in a very eco-friendly way. Made in Santa Barbara, California, where some say Earth Day started (and yours truly went to college there too!)

Santa Barbara, California Community Environmental Council: The story goes that Earth Day was conceived by Senator Gaylord Nelson after a trip he took to Santa Barbara right after that horrific oil spill off our coast in 1969. He was so outraged by what he saw that he went back to Washington and passed a bill designating April 22 as a national day to celebrate the earth.

Read more about Simple shoes here.

easing down the rabbit hole...

2008-04-21T10:11:00.000-07:00

It has been way toooooooo long between posts here. I'm still on this adventure, and I keep coming up with blog post ideas and then not posting them. Just not a very diligent blogger I guess.

This morning my friend Ellen wrote this brilliant post about going green on her blog that I thought I'd share here as a way to ease back into my blog. Now that Spring is here (not necessarily in weather - it snowed, rained and hailed all weekend - but I did finally find and buy the first Washington grown asparagus of the year yesterday), I am recommitting to blogging here more regularly.

Call to Artists: Sacred Creation

2008-03-13T15:25:00.000-07:00

Call to Artists
Deadline: May 16, 2008

Sacred Creation: The Sacrament of the Earth
We are called upon to be stewards of the Earth, our island home. Yet it seems a day doesn't pass without at least one report of some new global, environmental threat or catastrophe. Global warming, holes in the ozone, pollution of air, sea and land, deforestation, endangered wildlife… sadly, the list goes on. Thankfully, the list of movements working to change this bleak outlook is also growing as more and more people become aware and involved. Organic and sustainable agricultural practices, recycling, alternative energy sources…

CR Gallery at the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer in Kenmore, Washington invites artists to submit 2-dimensional artwork that explores these themes. (Art can extend into the third dimension, but it must be able to be hung on a wall.) All genres and media considered, so don't feel this has to be landscape art. You can see pictures of our past exhibits on our artsblog at www.redeemer-kenmore.org/artsblog.

Where: Episcopal Church of the Redeemer, Kenmore, Washington

When: June 8, 2008 – August 15, 2008

Opening Reception: Thursday, June 12th, 6:30– 8:30pm

How: Submit up to 3 jpegs via e-mail to arts@redeemer-kenmore.org. Please include your name, contact information, and a few words about your work. Also include title, medium, framed dimensions, and retail price of each image submitted. Submission deadline is Friday, May 16th, 2008. The work will then be juried and acceptance notifications and delivery instructions will be sent out via e-mail by May 21st.

Entry fee: $15 (USD) for up to 3 images, payable via PayPal. Must be paid before work can be submitted to the jury. Simply click on the Pay Now button below.

Please take note of the following:
•Artwork must be ready to hang, preferably from a wire. Photographs and artwork on paper must be framed with a wire attached for hanging. Canvases do not need to be framed, but the sides should be painted, either a solid color or as a continuation of the image, in order to give a neat, professional appearance, and must have a wire attached to the stretchers for hanging purposes.

•For work that is shipped, all shipping costs will be the responsibility of the artist.

•Artwork can be for sale. The gallery will direct buyers directly to the artist and takes no commission.

•The gallery will take care of advertising and publicity, and artists with accepted work will receive postcard announcements to distribute themselves. Please have high quality digital images available for possible use in publications and postcards.

•In addition to being displayed in the nave gallery, accepted artists will also be featured on the church’s website.

•For ease of transport, and so we get to meet you, we are especially seeking artists in the Puget Sound area, but this call is open to all artists over 18.

•If you have any questions, please e-mail Angela Rockett at arts@redeemer-kenmore.org.

Anchor Free-Range Butter Ad

2008-03-05T12:57:00.000-08:00

Came across this video of an advertisement for a British dairy company. Enjoy! :)(best with sound on)

And for more about cows in the news, check out this article about California cows providing more than just milk.

Sign of Spring

2008-03-04T14:48:00.000-08:00

After being closed since the end of October, there's just one more day and Yakima Fruit Market here in Bothell will be open! Seems like a sure sign of spring. I have to admit that since we moved here a few years ago, I haven't been making as much use of this wonderful resource as I should. But this year, they will see me at least once a week hunting down great local produce.

But what about my caffeine?

2008-02-07T12:11:00.000-08:00

I meant to post on this blog at least once a week, but I kinda missed a couple of weeks. There is just so much to write about on this, and its related topics, that I got a little overwhelmed by choices and couldn't decide what to start with.

After some consideration, I decided to write about a topic near and dear to the Seattle area - caffeine! Knowing that none of my favorite sources for my drug of choice grow anywhere near here (and that's an understatement), I decided to go with the advice of Steven L. Hopp (husband of Barbara Kingsolver, environmental studies professor, and co-author of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle). Basically to "apply the same positive food standards, minus the local connections, to some imported products" that we do to local foods, "including environmental responsibility, agricultural sustainability, and fair wages to those who grow our food."

Thus, Fair Trade. I still have a lot to research on this topic, but I have managed to find coffee, tea, and chocolate that I can feel good about purchasing, and ingesting. And I have to say that they all taste better too. I discovered that one of my favorite coffee houses, Caffe Ladro, serves all fair trade, shade grown (essential for keeping the rainforests and their inhabitants alive) and organic coffee and tea. I bought my most recent pound of coffee from them. Tully's is quickly adding more and more of these choices to their offerings. And Starbucks is, well, perhaps not responding as quickly as a company of their size should. Caffe Vita, and Tony's, other local coffee companies, are also organic and fair trade. I'm sure there's more - this is just my initial research. And being in Seattle, I didn't have to look far.

In the land of tea, I've also been lucky enough to find offerings that are also local companies. Tao of Tea, based in Portland, Oregon, is my new favorite. I have a tin of their Malty Assam loose leaf tea that is just lovely. Choice Organic Teas, based in Seattle, are also really good. (If organic and fair trade offerings in your area are slim, I believe you can mail order from all of these companies.)

And chocolate. The bar pictured above is a chocolate made in Switzerland, so not even a local company, but oh, it is sooooo good. There are several locally made chocolates, and many of them are organic, and some are even organic and fair trade. I have much research to do. Tough job, but somebody's gotta do it, right? ;)

One more source of caffeine that I don't really pay much attention to, but my husband does, is soda. The only way I can think to make soda even remotely good for the environment, and for your body, is to get rid of the corn syrup, and the chemicals that make up the fake sweetners. We found a local company that does just that. Jones Soda. I'm not really sure what they use for their diet sodas, but for the regular ones, they use cane sugar. As they say on their packaging, "corn is for cars".

P.S. - update from the world of chocolate - Mars, Nestle Promise Ethical Cocoa Supply, from the Organic Consumers Association website's news headlines.

Weekly Miscellany

2008-01-21T18:50:00.000-08:00

I'm reading Slow Food Nation, which is by one of the founders of the Slow Food Movement. I'm about halfway through. Very informative, though not quite as easy to read as Kingsolver's book. Perhaps because it's translated from Italian. I first heard about the Slow Food Movement when I read In Praise of Slowness last year. It's a great book in which the author investigates all the ways we've gotten rid of slow pleasures in the detrimental pursuit of speed and efficiency, not only in the arena of food, but in all aspects of our lives. I recommend it. His description of a dinner he had in Italy will have you drooling for a slower pace. (I've put an Amazon widget in the sidebar and I'll try to put all the books that I mention in my posts there.)

Poked around on the internet a bit and found the Organic Consumers Association. So much great information on this site! Products, companies, information, links, news items and action alerts about health, environment, organics, etc. It's going to take a while to explore the whole thing.

Pondering how I can rearrange the apartment to create a bigger pantry space. I can't do much about the size of my freezer, but I might be able to move some stuff around in my closets. Just thinking ahead to the possibility of maybe canning some of the coming harvest. Hard to believe there will be lovely summer vegies and fruits again someday when the current weather refuses to get above freezing, but it's fun to think about.

And one more observation. You know how they say not to go grocery shopping when you're hungry? Well, I'd like to add something to that. Don't go when you're tired, especially if you want to make good choices. During our last shopping trip, I was just exhausted for some reason, and I gave in to buying some things that I know don't conform to how I'm trying to change my food habits, but I was just too tired to think about it.

Weekly Miscellany

2008-01-12T10:40:00.000-08:00

Some notes on the week:

In an attempt to start weening myself off of convenience foods, I made the above pizza from scratch using recipes from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything (wonderful cookbook). It was just delicious! And really very easy.

Also dusted off the ice cream maker and made some lovely, rich, creamy, yummy vanilla ice cream (also using Bittman's recipe). Enjoyed the last of it last night over warm sautéd apples (one of those luscious Jonagolds I mentioned in the last post) in butter and brown sugar. Mmmmmmm. This coming week I think I'll make chocolate ice cream.

This morning I watched the premier episode of British chef Jamie Oliver's new show Jamie at Home on the Food Network. It's good to see a show about fresh, local ingredients on such a huge network. Maybe it's a sign that it's catching on.

Where do I shop?

2008-01-10T13:40:00.000-08:00

So the comments to my last post would indicate that people are interested in where I'm shopping for groceries. There also seems to be some assumption that local goodies can't be found in the everyday neighborhood supermarket. I'm here to tell you that that is where I shop, and I've been pleasantly surprised by some of what I've found. In fact, since I live in a location very central to many grocery stores (not sure why there are so many, but there you have it), I shop at about 4 of them, bouncing around between them, depending on my mood usually. I don't shop at Whole Foods for a couple of reasons, the primary one being that the closest one is just not close enough for me. Secondly, I've always found them to be just too expensive. Maybe that will change as I go forward with this way of life, but for now… The other option around here is PCC Natural Markets, a local chain of retail cooperative natural grocery stores. Again, too far away for me, but I really like the stores I've been to and how they get really involved in the community and such, so I might look into getting a membership there.

My favorite grocery store is the Central Market up in Mill Creek (about 5-7 miles from my apartment I think, it's the furthest one), part of Town & Country Markets whose stated pledge is "to nourish the quality of life." I love shopping there. Not only do I find wonderful food there, I always leave with smile because it's just such a pleasant place to shop. In fact, I can't go there when I'm in a hurry, because I get sucked into wandering and discovering. I'll admit that I also tend to spend more there. Some of their prices are a bit higher than the big chain stores (to be expected really, but the quality and the service is amazing), but they also just have such cool stuff that you want to try! For example, one weekend last summer the owner of a local handmade ice cream treat company (I'll have to look up the name of the company next time we're there) was handing out samples of her ice cream sandwiches - homemade lemon cookies sandwiching homemade honey/lavender ice cream. Well, on bite and we had to go buy a couple to take home! They are also really great about making local and organic produce and products available, and clearly marking where they come from.

Next favorite would probably be TOP Foods, part of the Haggen chain based in Bellingham, WA, and I believe they only have locations in the Northwest. I am always impressed with the produce selection. Lots of local and organic, clearly marked. Last week I bought some beautiful organic, Washington grown Jonagold apples as big as softballs, and delicious as well, and they were the cheapest apples in the store! I almost got the regular non-organic, local Jonagolds until I saw these beauties. Decent organic/natural product selection too, though it can be pricey.

When I'm really concerned about price, or I just have a lot of dry goods to buy, I usually head for Fred Meyer. Started in Oregon, the company now belongs to the huge Kroger chain (QFC, Ralph's, Kroger). They actually have a wonderful natural/organic products section. Their produce and meat sections don't usually impress me much, though I've heard differently about their Oregon stores. And I usually leave there feeling pretty grumpy and jangly due to crowds and sensory overload.

And finally, when I just need to pick up a few things and I don't want to deal with a large store, I go to our little downtown Bothell QFC. It's quiet and small enough that the cashiers actually know a lot of the customers by name. And for a big national chain, they do seem to make an effort on the local front. Just recently they've changed their deli chicken, all of it, over to a local, natural chicken producer (Draper Valley Farms in Mt. Vernon, WA). Good for them!

Some initial thoughts and guidelines

2008-01-04T14:56:00.000-08:00

Not sure what these are, but I saw them while I was walking along the river the other day and thought they looked cool.

What with the holidays and whatnot I haven't posted for a couple of weeks, but I have been keeping localtarianism in my thoughts, and in some of my actions, nonetheless. I'm going to try to update this blog more often, hopefully at least once a week, as the year progresses. Thank you to everyone who has stopped by so far, and thanks for the comments. Keep them coming! Reading your reactions and thoughts gives me encouragement to keep going, and gives me more to "food" for thought. :)

Since deciding on this course of action, I've been working on setting up some guidelines for myself. I am just not disciplined enough to try the "100 mile diet" which Ellen mentioned, and I don't want to overwhelm myself with demands that will probably just lead to me not doing anything at all. But I also don't want to just forget it either. So, I search for a happy medium.

One thing I have decided on is that since I live in Washington, I will focus on buying Washington state produce, but I am willing to buy Northwest produce (Washington, Oregon and Idaho), and I will even buy from as far as California. California produce will be mostly in the form of citrus and the occasional avocado. Better, in terms of amount of petroleum used for transport, than from Florida or Chile, right? And I'll try to keep things seasonal as much as possible. (These berries I see in the grocery store right now just ain't right!) And I will buy organic whenever it's a viable option.

See, if I was being really, really strict, I would never see an orange or an avocado again, and I just don't see myself doing that. I have pretty much given up bananas, and other tropical fruits, though. Key word here - tropical. I will probably still allow them once in a great while, because I do love tropical fruit. Especially mangos.

Today I picked up several container gardening books at the library. I've never been all that great with plants, so I haven't even tried to make my own garden in quite a while, but maybe I can make it work this time, since I have this great cause behind it. I'm going to try to grow tomatoes and some herbs at the very least. Any gardening tips would be greatly appreciated!

So far I've had no trouble locating organic and local dairy products, and organic, local free-range chicken and eggs too. They cost a little more, but the quality is definitely worth it. I also found flour from a local, organic, cooperative mill. I'm having trouble finding beef that's clearly marked as local and pasture raised and all that. We don't eat a lot of beef, but when we do, I'd like to be able to know those things about it.

I've started researching some of our local farm and CSA (community sustainable agriculture) options. I'll report more on those as I know more.

The adventure in "localtarianism" begins

2007-12-21T10:47:00.000-08:00

a tangerine - citrus is in season in the winter (but not local for me - not sure I could do without it though)

I've always had an interest in protecting our environment and in cooking good, healthy food. Thus, when I go grocery shopping, I try to buy organic and natural whenever I can. Since reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, it's gone to a new level, far beyond the organic/non-organic question. This book really opened my eyes to some of the ways that our (U.S.) food system is very messed up, and some ways to help heal it. A large part of this healing is to buy locally and seasonally.

So, I've decided to be more aware of where my food comes from and make more conscious decisions about what, and where, I buy it. I want to buy locally as much as possible, and learn how to eat seasonally too. This is going to be a big change from how I usually think about food. For example, when I set out to write my grocery list today, I started with recipes that I had in mind, then wrote down the ingredients I needed to make those recipes. I'm sure that's how most of you do it too. If I'm to make a conscious choice to eat locally and seasonally, I'll have to somehow work that in reverse by first finding out what ingredients are available to me, then make a meal plan and find recipes built around that availability.

Like many of you, I'm an urban apartment dweller, what can I do? I don't even have a yard to plant a garden in, or a much of a green thumb anyway, much less a small farm out my back door. I don't even have a decent pantry or freezer. What can I do? Thus this blog is born! I thought it would be helpful for me to write about my journey of "localtarianism", my frustrations and successes as I find out what, indeed, I can do. And maybe it will also be helpful to others who care about the health of our planet, and good food too. I'll also be posting about recipes, meal plans, shopping trips, books and other resources. And, since I'm an artist, I'll include appropriate drawings and paintings like the one above from time to time.

And hopefully there will be some sharing of advice and stories with other bloggers too.

Please join me on this adventure!
Angela