It’s October 1 and the Eat Local Challenge has begun in the Chu household. We’re not quite sure what this is going to end up meaning to us yet. At the very least, we expect to learn something. We’re not very good at keeping track of things we ingest. We’d rather just eat and enjoy. So you’ll see no “70% within 10 miles, 20% within 100 miles, and 10% from anywhere” delimitations. Who wants to keep track? We’d rather just have the focus and see what comes of it.
So what are we doing so far? Well, we already have our little urban garden. Not a lot left we can get out of it, though: some carrots, one giant red tomato, a dozen little cherry tomatoes, and maybe a pepper or two. Plus All Those Herbs. We love our basils, thyme and rosemary. They’ll definitely last through the month.
We’re also members of our local CSA, sharing a share with a neighbor. Now there’s a challenge for you! Into the house comes whatever the farmer is ready to harvest, and we get to figure out what to do with it! Yesterday for dinner we had organic chicken (but I don’t know where it came from), pasta that was probably made in Italy (horrors!) and a big tomato-and-fennel salad dressed with balsamic vinegar and olive oil. We grew the tomato, the farmer grew the fennel and… we know, you can’t grow olives in Central New York. I guess it’s time to switch to local apple cider vinegar, eh?
We always have locally-produced yogurt on hand (Wake Robin Farm in Jordan, NY), but we’ll have to really concentrate to get local eggs. The butter is made for our local Byrne Dairy (we have a love-hate relationship with that company) but I don’t know where the cows are. So we have a little research to do.
Grains are going to be an issue. That’s going to take some research, too. We have cupboards full of bags of pasta, rice, cous-cous, bulghur, and even amaranth. I somehow doubt any of it comes from Central New York, yet we are not millionaires and are likely to shrug and eat what’s in the house already.
Coffee is fair trade and is roasted locally at Cafe Kubal. Our roaster knows his coffee bean growers, some quite personally. As for tea… I guess we’ll have to figure out what kind of herbal teas are made around here. So much research to do! If you have any ideas for us, please send them via the comment form!
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