Month 2: Challenges and Feasts

We finished our second month of 100-mile eating on December 31.

The holidays were a challenge. There are soooo many goodies out there, social occasions, gifts, and so forth. Jim asked to have Chocolate be an exception, only for two weeks ending New Year's Eve. This sounded reasonable, so we allowed it. I bought some Organic Fair-Trade chocolate and cocoa, and a couple of boxes of Whole Foods Organic Chocolate Truffles. I found that with six weeks of not eating any, I had pretty much lost my taste for it, so he ate most of it. We're off chocolate again now, not missing it. Food is a big part of holiday traditions, and going cold turkey (pardon the expression) would have been very difficult.

Jim gave me a Meyer lemon tree, in a big pot, for Christmas. It has a beautiful green lemon on it. I've also bought a variety of herbs in pots, to give us that fresh taste. Part of our Christmas dinner was roasted root vegetables (parsnip, carrot, and turnip, all from Cresset Farm) with a little olive oil and fresh rosemary and thyme. Yum.

I shared the rules of our 100-mile diet with my sister back at the first of November when we started our quest. One of them is that we can accept and enjoy unsolicited gifts of food. Well, bless her heart, she did not forget that. Our Christmas box from her was heavy. It had walnuts, pistachios, and hazelnuts, two grapefruit, six Meyer lemons, 2 tangerines, a pear, a large organic pomegranate, two organic free-trade chocolate bars, organic curry powder, a fresh ginger root, and a bag of tapioca. All things that are off limits for us. How very thoughtful.

We have been enjoying the fruit. (We've been enjoying everything, of course.) I dried two lemons, and juiced three (Meyer lemons are not good keepers). I took the lemon rind, and the grapefruit rind, and candied them by a recipe I found on the internet. That taste of citrus will be precious in the winter months ahead, nice for a little munch, nice cut up in cakes or ice cream. Here is the recipe: very easy.

Candied citrus peel

One cup citrus peel (lemon, orange, grapefruit)
1/2 cup sugar
water

Cut up the peel into strips. You don't need to strip off the inner pith, but remove the fruit part. Put in pan with water to cover, bring to a boil, simmer for 10 minutes. Drain, repeat two more times (to remove some of the bitterness). Drain again, mix the sugar and 1/4 cup water in your little pan, simmer the peels 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Then set out on a rack and let them air-dry. When they are no longer sticky to the touch, put into a jar. (I haven't tried honey, but will for the second grapefruit; sugar is not local.)

I found a cute little gadget for making a pint of ice cream: Donvier (also comes in quart size). You freeze the central cylinder overnight, pour your mixed ice cream ingredients into it, and turn the handle every few minutes. Takes about 20 minutes, almost no work. We fixed nearly-local ice cream with Windsor Dairy milk, beaten eggs, honey, and a little vanilla. Delicious. Makes just the right amount for us. I was out of cream, but the rich milk made a lovely light ice cream just as it was. It's nice to know we don't have to give up ice cream for eating locally.

Now that the holidays are past, we are facing the dark days of winter. I did a little inventory of what we have: still lots of fruit (fresh apples in garage, dried fruit from yard, frozen berries I bought last summer); CSA vegetables (winter squash, root vegetables, cabbages and their kin) plus the occasional local hothouse tomato, and lactofermented pickles of various kinds; plentiful supply of meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy from local farmers (we won't go hungry). In the pantry, the tea selection is thinning out, the rice is half gone, still plenty of herbs and spices. I'm holding back on the rice, using potatoes more often.

Going critical: frozen lima beans and peas; tea. I'm saving my last Exception for some kind of tea, but it seems extravagant to say "all kinds of tea" so I won't do that. I have plans to plant beds of herbs this summer to dry for herb teas; most tea herbs grow here just fine: mints, chamomile, linden flowers (an unused resource), raspberry leaves, rose hips, etc. etc. No peas and limas until next summer some time; perhaps I'll plant some. It's made me think of foods I want to put up next summer, to prepare for the following winter.

I'm sure by March and April, we'll be craving fresh green leaves. Ursula at Cresset Farm picks the spring's first tender dandelion leaves, nettle leaves, and other wild spring greens for soups and salads that taste so good in the spring. I'll let you know how we fare with that, as it comes up.

Note: I have lost another four pounds, eating wonderful local foods and as much as I want. The food is just more satisfying. And avoiding junk food and fast food has also been contributing to my weight loss, I'm sure. (For me, weight loss is good. I have some more extra pounds I'd like to bid goodbye to.) When I said "100-mile diet", I wasn't thinking of losing weight, but it's been happening.