momentum

Come to think of it, yeah garbage totals do seem to be dropping. Just another consequence of eating locally.

The local food movement does seem to be gaining a good deal of momentum. The Foodlums of UWEC are very active lobbying for local food on campus and spreading the word in general.

I have dreams of creating a community garden, possibly near the downtown next summer. It may be a rental-type lot such as the one in Demler park, or it may be volunteer driven with a CSA aspect and/or to be donated to a local foodbank. Or both!

We picked some grapes along the river the other week and it made for some tart, delicious grape juice.

Peace,

Ben

Tomatillo Pork Chops and Education

I don't want to be thought as a "blog hog" (this is my last entry until another one comes up), but I wanted to add a couple things before the end of the Eat Local Challenge. First, if you have not seen the recipe book From Asparagus To Zucchini, you should take a look at it (I am not sure if Just Local Food still has any, but we bought ours there). There are a few recipes for everything you can think of. A couple nights ago, we had tomatillo sauce (tomatillos from Sylvan Hills Farm and are they good and fresh!) covered pork chops for dinner. On the side, squash (CSA) with local syrup and butter on it, some tomatoes (CSA) with bread (homemade) and Havarti (Nelsons) cheese.

Has anyone else seen a decrease in the amount of their weekly garbage due to the Eat Local Challenge? We have noticed it specifically in the last two/three months since a lot of the produce has started coming up.

I would like to encourage and challenge all of us "localvores" to think this winter how we can introduce eating locally to more people. I look at myself. Ten years ago living in Rockford, IL, I will be honest, I was eating a lot of frozen pizzas, stuffed jalapeno poppers, packaged pot pies, sixty-nine cent frozen burritos, not thinking about where my meat came from, organic was probably not in my vocabulary, nor was sustainable, etc. Did this happen overnight? No. Did they all happen at the same time? No. Was it from one experience or one person? No. How did I go from that person to who I am today when it comes to the type of food I eat and what I pay attention to? Simply, it was gradual and involved meeting different people and reading different articles/books, etc. I frequent the Phoenix Park Farmers Market weekly. Personally, I think as a community we do a better job at eating locally than a lot of communities. I would also argue that a decent percentage of the people who shop at the weekly markets are not really aware of all the positive aspects of eating locally. I think for a lot of the people, it is part of their habit or way of life. That is great. However, how do we reach more people? How do we do it? What is our goal? Do we have one? Are there measuring sticks? How do we get local food in cafeteria settings (hospitals, schools, prisons, nursing homes, etc.) How do we introduce it to kids so they ask for it at home? How do we knock down barriers?

There is a great energy and movement here in the Chippewa Valley. At the same time, it seems that there is a history of eating locally and/or having local producers. That is a huge advantage. Many areas of the country do not have that. With the energy, history, and existing conditions, it seems that we are ripe for a powerful local food revolution here in the Chippewa Valley, if it is not already happening. Let's keep this thing rolling!

local soup and bread

This weekend consisted of processing our last 25lbs of tomatoes bought at the Farmers Market on Saturday (salsa and tomato sauce). Saturday evening, we had a potato and leek cream soup (Cooking Light magazine's all-time best soup recipe) and jalapeno cornbread (throw some of Wisconsin's finest local butter or local honey on that, and I'm telling you, you will be making it again the next night). All made with local food. If you want to get flour, etc for homemade local bread, we highly recommend Just Local Food in Eau Claire. They have it from a company in MN.

Looking for the most local beer? Head out to Northwoods, buy a growler, and fill it up. Refills are only $6. Like Davin who lives across the street from me said, it is like going to Just Local Food and getting your milk.

Middle Eastern Bison Casserole - Chippewa Valley style

Our family is really enjoying this month taking eating locally up a couple of notches. I am not sure if most people in west central Wisconsin realize it, but it is like we are living in the Garden of Eden when it comes to the variety of different foods and drinks we can get locally. Thanks to our CSA, the farmers market, and our Demmler Gardens plot, I don't remember the last time I was in a grocery store other than Just Local Food (and for me, that is a good thing).

I wanted to share a meal we had earlier this week, Middle Eastern Bison Casserole. It was supposed to be a beef casserole, but we used bison instead. The recipe is from the American Heart Association's Low-Salt Cookbook. Also, we are doing our best with eating everything within 100 miles, except we decided to still use spices that we already had. In addition, we use the flour from Just Local Food that is from MN to make homemade bread. I think it comes from closer to 200 miles away than 100. Other than that, we are doing well. We have been eating homemade pizzas about once a week too. Fresh basil, homemade dough, tomatoes, peppers, local cheese, etc. Last weekend we bought 50 lbs of tomatoes at the farmers market. The cost....only $16. We were able to make a ton of tomato sauce for pasta, pizza, soup, etc. Just a reminder, this will probably be the last weekend with tomatoes at the market.

I would also like to recommend the book "Grub". A great read and some decent recipes in it, also.

Enjoy!
- 14.5 ounce can no salt added tomatoes, well drained (we used tomatoes from our plot in Demmler Gardens)
- 1/2 cup finely chopped onions (our plot again)
- 2 teaspoons sugar (could use honey)
- 3/4 to 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice or nutmeg
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 8 ounces lean ground beef (we used bison from the Phoenix Park farmers market)
- 8 to 10 ounces eggplant, cut crosswise into 1/2 inch slices (from out Sylvan Hills CSA)
- 4 ounces low fat cream cheese (a local dairy, Crystal Ball, if I remember correctly)
- 1/2 cup fat free or low fat plain yogurt (homemade from Castle Rock milk)
- Whites of two large eggs (from Just Local Food), egg substitute equivalent to one egg, or one large egg.
- Paprika
- I would also recommend adding some Sylvan Hills garlic to this.

- Combine tomatoes, onion, sugar, cinnamon, allspice, and salt.
- Cook beef in pan for three minutes, or until brown, stirring constantly. Put in colander and rinse with hot water to remove excess fat (sigh). Stir into tomato mixture.
- Put eggplant slices in one layer in casserole dish and top with beef mixture.
- In food processor or blender, combine remaining ingredients except paprika and process until smo0th. Pour over beef mixture and sprinkle with paprika.
- Bake for one hour, uncovered, at 350 degrees.
- Remove from oven and let sit for 10 to 30 minutes for eggplant to absorb liquid. If serving after only 10 minutes, use a slotted spatula.

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I will leave you with this word...lagom.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagom

Thanks. Eric Anderson

Soups On

I felt like a chapter out of Man, Woman, Vegetable... the other day when we had company coming, and what I thought I had in the pantry I had not. I was frantic trying to think of what we would serve our guests, while keeping with the local challenge. So with a few leeks, zucchini and pata pan squash on-hand, I got busy. I found some frozen chicken broth I had saved from a chicken I bought from some Amish folks awhile back, dug some ground beef out of the freezer that we had gotten from Dan Sommerfeld, sauteed my veggies, and threw in some fresh thyme from our CSA box. I even found a rogue potato still in our garden and some hearty tomatoes still hanging on to add to the mix. Delicious beef vegetable soup for all. For dessert: mashed apple compote from local orchard apples. The best part was knowing where every single ingredient came from. I love this month!

Eat Local Breakfast #1

My favorite (and easiest) local meal thus far has to be breakfast. I am a huge fan of breakfast and an even bigger fan of a healthy, filling bowl of oatmeal. To start my day I've been making oats from the Whole Grain MIlling Co. based in Welcome, MN (approximately 243 miles away from Eau Claire). To complement this fiber rich treat I have been adding blueberries that I froze from Charlotte's Berry Farm earlier this summer. I top it off with a little Organic Valley Soymilk (and some not-so-local cinnamon) and I'm ready for my day! I am feeling pretty good about this local addition to my diet and also appreciate the low cost of the meal. I hope everyone is finding themselves equally healthy and filling local meals and I can't wait to hear about them!

Local Food in Unusual Settings

Yes, even local food can turn up in the most unusual of places.

Example #1

Royce Roberts, our Sous Chef here at Native Bay, called me early in the afternoon. He was standing in the woods and was pretty sure that he had stumbled upon a jackpot of laetiporus sulphureus -- better known in the culinary world as "chicken of the woods" mushrooms. I drove to meet him and, sure enough, we identified and harvested 8 pounds of these beauties (pictured above). Chicken of the woods have an incredible flavor and are named for their texture, which very much resembles that of chicken when cooked. At the restaurant, we often have to pay over $25/pound for these treasures and those usually come from across the river in Minnesota. But here we are with eight pounds of them for free, and they'll be hitting the menu tomorrow.

These mushrooms represent a tiny fraction of incredible wild foods that are growing in our region as we speak. In addition to at least 6 other varieties of fungus that are edible and ready to pick right now (and you thought morels were the only worthy variety), we've been fortunate enough in the last week to get our hands on wild grapes, plums and apples. Additionally, there's a host of other foods growing out in the wild that are just free for the taking. (I suppose now is a good time to add a word of caution that if you aren't certain the wild food you've found is edible, particularly with mushrooms, don't mess with it. This is a good way to get yourself sick or dead.) Just goes to show, fantastic local food isn't just at the farmer's market or the grocery stores.

Example #2

Speaking of which, I was on my way to my girlfriend's house to cook a big, fat vat of soup for dinner (all local, of course) when I passed a young boy sitting with a produce stand on a main drag here in downtown Chippewa. I turned around and stopped to chat with him. The boy was selling produce that was straight out of he and his mother's garden (he claimed that she did the planting, he did the watering and they shared in the weeding). Let me state publicly that there is hardly an experience that can bring you as much joy in our modern world as buying produce picked only a couple of hours earlier from a twelve-year-old on the side of a busy city street. I bought two huge cucumbers, three jalapenos and a pair of beautiful red bell peppers (the latter two ingredients of which immediately went into the soup pot -- which was delicious, by the way) and gave the kid $5, even though he only tried to charge me $3.


These are just a few small examples of what makes the Eat Local Challenge so exciting. I'd love to hear some other folks' experiences thus far...