On Eating Local

Yes, we're eating local! Not 100% yet, we're working our way into it.

Last week was supposed to be our start, we thought, and we got our first delivery from one community supported agriculture service (CSA). For $35.00, we got some beautiful organic produce, including root veggies, blood oranges, and apples from California. I think the eggs were local. We didn't realize the winter would mean the CSA service would supplement their income using organic produce from anywhere. I think they try to work with local farms, but it is deep winter now. We realized we could do the same for ourselves at Goose Market on College, where we have been picking up sweet potatoes, organic lettuce and veggies, beef, and chicken.

On Saturday, I journeyed out to Traders Point Creamery for the winter market (9:00 a.m. - noon) and picked up some beef, pork, and eggs, some dried tomatoes and bell peppers, and some home made soap. Today's New York Times had an article and some recipes about dried tomatoes. It's true, the flavor is intensified in the drying. We'll have to try that next summer. We lost so much in not being prepared to "put up" our abundance of tomatoes. Winter is a good time to find out what kinds of preserving we can learn by next harvest from our back yard gardens.

I cooked up the last of the potatoes and other root veggies, including carrot, parsnip, and a purple carrot. Here's what I had for dinner tonight: organic potatoes, carrots, and parsnips steamed in the good ol' Revere Ware, and the local pork loin. Hey, Mississippi folks -- recognize Emmett Collier's pottery?












Tonight, we got our first delivery from Basic Roots. Wow, that Brian is a nice guy. Here's what we got for $45.00.

We know this is not the best time of year to start this adventure. Brian told us that the usual supplier of winter greens, Yeager, was frozen out with that recent deep freeze. But, they went to Saraga and picked up some organic baby lettuce.

We're expecting this winter to eat more potatoes than usual, just because that's what people have stored away. These sweet potatoes from the Basic Roots bag look wonderful.

They included samples from a woman who works with beeswax that comes from bees in a church steeple on Rural Rd. on the east side. They also included a CD from the Dancin' Nancys, Everything Changes. Popcorn, apples, apple cider, tomatoes, salsa, eggs, and a yummy loaf of dessert bread completed the order, all from within 60 miles of Indianapolis. I'll check the next time I go to Kroger to see how we're comparing on costs. But, this is not the point. We're willing to renegotiate our finances to make this commitment to CSA.

I think this is a fine way to start something new with the beginning of Lent.