Local Vinegar!

Today was the first day of the Farmer's Market at Phipps Conservatory.  I love this market because it has a great variety of meats, cheese, honey, eggs, and veggies.  And today I discovered another special item: local vinegar!  Not only was it local, it was the best vinegar Mark or I have ever had!  It was made by Sonshine Farm.  The farmer said the secret was the "mother".  I had no idea what she meant, and I didn't want to sound like I didn't know anything about where my food comes from, so I just asked wikipedia:


Mother of vinegar is a substance composed of a form of cellulose and acetic acid bacteria that develops on fermenting alcoholic liquids, which turns alcohol into acetic acid with the help of oxygen in the air.  It is added to wine, cider or other alcoholic liquids to produce vinegar.


I'm very excited to be learning more about where (and how) food is made.  And I've got some fantastic local vinegar!

Rabbit rabbit rabbit!

Rabbit rabbit rabbit! I have been told that if you say that on the morning of the first of the month, before you say anything else, you'll have good luck for the rest of the month. According to Wikipedia, the origins of the tradition are unknown but "some have also believed it is representing a jumping into the future and moving ahead with life and happiness". This morning was a rare morning in which Mark and I remembered. I suppose that's a good omen for the local-food year kick off, which is not today. We decided to make it the first day after we recieve our first farm share, so we will start this Friday, June 4th. There is still a fair amount of non-local food in the house, so unfotunately the transition won't be as dramatic as I was hoping for, but all of the perishable items (fruit, veggies, dairy, eggs) will be local starting Friday.

Visiting my CSA farm

Yesterday I went on a tour of Dillner Family Farm, where I am getting my CSA from.  It was a great experience, and definitely worth the drive through a monsoon to get there!  The Dillner family farms 122 acres surrounding their house, and they do it all just with help from family.  I was really impressed that just a few people could do so much work on so much land.  It was also really neat to learn a little about their farming techniques, such as using high wind tunnels to extend the growing season.  They also use ladybugs for pest management, and bumblebees to pollinate the crops.  The Dillner family seemed like a very content, hard-working, caring, happy group.  I'm glad to know my food will be coming from such a nice place!

Making Pasta

Last night we had our first nearly-local meal of the year. I know we're supposed to be eating all the non-local food at the house, but there was a farmers market at the Strip District last weekend and I just couldn't resist! I was also excited to try the new pasta maker I got for my birthday. So using Anne Willan's Look & Cook Perfect Pasta cookbook I got from the library, Mark and I made our first fettuccine. And I found out that Mark has serious pasta making talent. We were each kneading our own piece of dough, and Mark's looked exactly like the picture and Mark had to fix mine to make it look like the picture. So thanks to Mark the pasta turned out great!

For a sauce I sauteed asparagus, mushrooms and parsley in a white-wine cream sauce. And for dessert I made a rhubarb crisp. Everything was really easy to make except the pasta, but I bet that will get easier after we do it a few times. The local ingredients were: eggs, cream, asparagus, mushrooms, and rhubarb. Now we just need to eat all the non-local food in the house in the next week and a half.

Social Inequities in Diet and Obesity

I've been reading a lot about the social inequities in diet and obesity. According to the USDA low-income families eat low-cost energy dense diets that result in a higher incidence of obesity. An article I read written by Adam Drewnowski published in Nutrition Reviews in 2009 stated:

"...more healthful foods are also more expensive and beyond the reach of many. Some low-income families limit their food budget to $100 for four people per week, or less than $4 per person per day. The only foods that can be obtained for this amount of money are high in refined grains, added sugars, and added fats, and the healthful, recommended foods are separated by an immense gap in energy costs."

I highly doubt that it is impossible for people to eat healthy food for about $4 a day, that is if people are willing to put in a little extra effort to cook. I predict that Mark and I should be able to eat local unprocessed food for a year for about $4 a person per day. Maximally we should be able to eat for less than we would receive in food stamps, which according to the USDA a family of 2 19-50 years old would receive $80.6 per week, which is almost $6 a person per day. I will keep track of the amount we spend, so that I can tally it in the end. I will also keep track of our weight, since spending less on food tends to correlate with an increase in weight.

Plenty (of time)

I just finished a book called Plenty by Alisa Smith and J.B. Mackinnon.  This couple writes about their experiences eating food within 100 miles of Vancouver for a year. I appreciate their stories about finding local food, however I would have liked to known more about their cooking and eating experiences. Overall it is well-written, and has some very interesting details about the loss of biodiversity that has resulted from our international food culture.

The book gave me some interesting ideas about eating locally too. The book mentions that "A study in the United Kingdom showed that the amount of time people now spend driving to the supermarket, looking for parking, and wandering the length ailes in search of frozen pizzas or pre-mixed salads is nearly equal to that spent preparing food from scratch twenty years ago". I thought this was a particularly interesting fact. I probably spend at least 2 hours a week grocery shopping. This summer all I will have to do is pick up my farm share, which will take about 20 minutes. So I will have an extra 1 hour and 40 minutes to cook and preserve food. Despite my concerns about having time to prepare and store foods, maybe I will have Plenty of time to eat locally after all.

The Millennium Exception

I've been getting a lot of questions about what I will include and exclude  from my diet over the next year starting in June. Before I mentioned that 80% of food spending would be local. However, it doesn't seem specific enough, especially since there are plenty of non-local foods that are cheap.

So thanks to my Dad's suggestion, I am adding the "millennium exception" to my local food challenge. This means that anything that has been internationally traded for more than 1000 years will be okay to eat. 1000 years ago trading was occurring with little ecological impact, partially because it was a much smaller scale, but also because the foods were preserved and didn't have "expiration dates", so there wasn't a constant need for shipping.

What foods have been traded for more than 1000 years? So far I found out: spices, olive oil, cheese, wine, wheat, maize, rice, and dried figs. I guess I'm going to get a little history of international food trade while I'm at it!

Bottom line: I'm going to try to eat as much local as possible, but I will make exceptions for some "millennium" foods, especially spices and olive oil.  Also, so as to not socially exclude myself, I will make exceptions for the occasional night out for dinner with friends.