Successes and Challenges

I was set to post our first month's results, but some of the challenges got in the way. I'll describe them later in this post.

November: a month of changes

During November we used up all of our perishable food from the frig, and most of the semi-perishable food. We used some food from the freezer (some was local, some not), and the same for the pantry items. As we would run out of an item, it was time to find a substitute, or eat something else instead.

I have been keeping a diary of foods we eat each day; date, who (Jim or myself), the item, its source, and its status (Local, On Hand, or Exception). Jim and I do not always eat the same food; our tastes are different. I glanced down the entries for the beginning of November and the end, and found that, as you might expect, we were eating more and more local food. By weight or quantity, we probably eat 90% local food. I included entries for small items such as herbs, spices, cups of tea, etc. I stopped typing in "salt" as an ingredient; it was too tedious. Salt is an Exception anyway, so it doesn't matter that much.

A pleasant surprise for me was losing six pounds during the month, although I ate what I wanted and did not cut back. I was satisfied with smaller meals, because the food had so much flavor. I did not go hungry at all, after the first few days of cravings for the lost junk food. This is good. Jim also lost a few pounds.

The non-local foods that we were using by the end of the month fell into a few categories: teas (we are both tea drinkers), herbs and spices, frozen peas and lima beans (they'll be gone before long), condiments (soy sauce, mustard, etc.), rice and various flours, olive oil (Exception). Jim eats low-carb most days, and I can't eat gluten-containing grains, so grains aren't a big part of our diet anyway.

I also kept track of the foods I bought during the month, by date, item, brand or source, location, and type (local, exception, gift).
The only non-local items I purchased were hazelnuts for Jim (one of his Exceptions). My sister sent me some medlars (a little-known fruit, from her tree). They are very tasty; I think I'll get a tree for here. Gifts are okay (if unsolicited; I can't ASK somebody to buy something nonlocal and give it to me, to make up for something I can't buy). In November, I spent less than usual for our food purchases; a little of that was due to using On Hand foods, but most was because I bought no junk food, no processed food, no fast food. Just ingredients.

Overall, we are eating better food, and less of it. I am spending more time cooking, and more time looking in cookbooks. Now in the winter weather, I am fixing lots of soups. They make great lunches, and sometimes suppers. At the end of the month, we have more potatoes on hand, and more local cheeses. We're keeping up with our incoming CSA vegetables better. I found some real winners in our month's exploration, such as parsnip-carrot puree, with milk and butter. This was so delicious, Jim wanted seconds after he ate spiced apples for dessert. As soon as I get my hands on another carrot, I'll make more (we still have parsnips).

It was a surprise to me, just how much fun it is finding local farmers and growers, and talking to them about what they do. In the next day or two I will write up our visit to the turkey farm. Instead of the anonymous food at the supermarket, the food I'm buying is associated with people I meet, with land I see and even walk on sometimes, with the seasons as they turn.

December: a month of challenges

I am more-or-less retired, taking early retirement from my job as a software engineer five years ago. I hardly have time on my hands, but it's not like having a steady 9-5 job. However, for the last two weeks, I have been working 9-5 away from home, on an occasional job that shows up maybe twice a year. This is a challenge for local eating; I have to prepare foods for our lunches, Jim's at home and mine at work (I had a lot of turkey soup). This also meant time spent cooking in the evening, tired from the day's work. Well, you say, what's new about that? That's my life! Yes, and it was mine for forty years too.
I'm not downplaying that as a challenge.

After a few days of work, I got a terrible head cold. I took one day off work, and got enough better to struggle back to keep working on my assignment. Now I was tired, AND sick. This was more of a challenge. Our meals got pretty simple. I was glad that I had four weeks of practice preparing the local meals, because I had already found good sources and knew some easy local meals to fix. I pretty much lost my appetite, though I tried to keep some nutrition going in. It was just too hard to sit at the computer in the evening to work on the blog, so I didn't. I'm 95% recovered now, so I'm hoping to keep up to date with more posts.

Challenges in the Immediate Future

Bit by bit, "On Hand" items leave. I used the last of the lemon juice yesterday. It made me think.... I decided to ask for a Meyer lemon tree for Christmas; it will live in a sunny room in the winter, and on the patio in the summer, and hopefully produce a few lemons for us to use. I can see we will miss some flavors, such as citrus. I also bought two rosemary shrubs in pots, which need watering EVERY DAY, and a tiny bay tree. I'd like to build up a supply of indoor-outdoor herbs, to use fresh in cooking.

The first couple of weeks it felt very strange not going to the supermarket, except for household supplies. Even the health food stores have pretty slim pickings: Haystack Mountain goat cheese (I toured their little farm), potatoes from LaSalle, squash and onions from Grants Family Farm in Wellington. Since there is almost nothing commercially available as local food, especially that can be eaten without cooking, I need to be prepared when leaving the house. We either plan to eat first, or get back before we need to eat, or take food with us.

I can also see that even with 5 Exceptions apiece, there are a lot of things that will just go. Soy sauce, for instance. I'm not going to consume a precious Exception for soy sauce; I can't make soy sauce at home even if I could find the soy beans. When I use it up, it's gone. As the months go by, and the On Hand items run out, it will be an adventure figuring out how to get a variety of flavors in the food. From more than a month's experience, I see that finding FOOD per se is not the problem; we are well supplied with meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy products, fruits and vegetables. Plenty of calories are available, plenty of nutrition. How to keep interesting and varied flavors will be the challenge.