Sunday, June 24, 2007

Fantastic Farmers Market!!!!!


This past saturday, I spent a fantastic morning at the farmer's market, loading up on local goodies for the week....Heritage Farms has a great farmers market saturday mornings from 9am-12noon. I bought delicious bread, veggies, organic grass-fed beef & pork, jam, berries & apples, and locally-roasted coffee. We also get veggies and goat cheese in our CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) share with Crown Point Ecology Center. What a great start to our food week! If anyone is interested in following up on any of these ideas, you can use the following websites to look into local NE Ohio food on your own! Eat well, be well!

http://www.cvcountryside.org/

http://www.crownpt.org/

http://www.heritagefarms.com/farmers_market.php

Saturday, June 23, 2007

Got Beer?



So...eating locally was indeed difficult when we were traveling last weekend. But fortunately, enjoying a good beer hasn't been all that difficult at all thanks to the beautiful people at the Great Lakes Brewing Company in Cleveland. I can't tell you how many times people have offered me a "beer," only to see them handing me something that can only be called beer. I always have to decline, fearing that people might think that I'm some kind of prude. I'm no prude, I'm a beer snob!

Friday, June 22, 2007

wedding food...


hello again!
we ran into a bit of local-food difficulty last weekend. my sister got married in dayton, ohio and we had to travel there for the weekend. unfortunately, we couldn't bring all of our food with us... so we had several things that were local to the dayton area while we were there...local wine, Indiana ketchup and green beans, (they are around 20 minutes from the Indiana border), and we ate in a locally-owned Mexican restaurant...although I can't speak to where the food came from.

This has come to be by far the most difficult part of this experiment...how do we deal with eating off of our "home turf?" at home, most things (generally-speaking) can be found locally, but when we leave our home base, it becomes difficult if not impossible to maintain enough control over the food situation to find local stuff... just an observation.

Otherwise, I've also come across people thinking I'm crazy for conducting this "pointless experiment" (their words not mine). This is frustrating, as I don't think much thought goes into where these people get their food from, and the impact of that choice. Anyways, enough ranting for now... 'til later.

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Yummy Yummy in my Tummy!


Tonight we had a delicious and locally created meal. It was so good that I had to take a minute to write about it. We had salads with Crown Point mixed greens and kohlrabi, grilled chicken from Tea Hills Farm (the "airline cut" with the wing and breast...so so tasty!), sauteed Crown Point CSA kale with garlic, and sauteed yellow squash and zuchini with garlic from a local farm (purchased at Krieger's Farm Market). We finished it all off (I don't know where we found the room!!) with homemade strawberry pie with strawberries we picked ourselves. Delicious! I am so stuffed! So you see, you can eat locally and still have a fantastic gourmet meal that really didn't require that much effort to put together. No sacrifice or suffering here! Onward and upward!

Monday, June 11, 2007

Ok...so we need to plan a bit.


Ok, so we've completed one week on and off of eating locally, and it has been a learning experience. We have learned that in order to be successful local eaters, a good deal of planning needs to occur upfront. If we don't plan for lunches, breakfasts, going out, we will have a difficult time eating locally. We have become accustomed to eating packaged breakfast cereal, using some convenience foods in our lunches (chips, etc.), and those things really aren't options locally, so far as I know. So...we are reconvening and making better plans for this week!

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

Getting Into It!




I feel a lot of excitement in our quest to eat local this summer. Aside from all of the details that we haven't yet thought of (what do we do when we go to parties, for instance), I am quite interested in seeing how intentionally eating local food connects us to our community, brings us closer together, and gets us more in tune with ourselves. (Image is of Crown Point Farm's Entrance Gate.)

We'll be highlighting some of our toils and triumphs along the way, including strories of some of the people we meet at various farmer's markets and purveyors of local food. I'd like to start by giving a shout out to the members of the Crown Point Ecology Center's Community Supported Agriculture project that has given us a lot of inspiration to eat good, local food. So come along and join us. Whether we succeed or not, we're going to have a lot of fun doing this and we'll be sure to pass along our experience to all of you.

Monday, June 4, 2007

In the beginning...


So here we are...beginning a summer of eating only local food. At first it seemed like such a simple idea...what's the big deal? There are farmer's markets, a local dairy etc. But then we began talking to people, and they would bring up items that we hadn't thought about finding locally: cooking oil, sour cream, ketchup... Uh oh...what are we doing, I would think... But I still feel like this is more exciting than it is difficult at this point. I think we'll be eating so much fresher, less processed and preserved. I am looking forward to eating food that is more whole, closer to the earth and its natural state, and overall healthier. Maybe we'll even lose a little weight (except for the little guy!)


When Eric and I talked about this, it didn't seem that eating local was a big deal, but as I began to talk to friends about it, it was exciting to realize other people's interest and excitement about the idea. I am now excited not only about the potential eating local has to improve our lives personally, as a family of three, but also to inspire others in the area that this is a "do-able" way to eat...and live. Our journey begins!