Life Begins at 30

My Eat Local Challenge

It's Eat Local Challenge time around here, and we have five days to go before a month of eating locally.  I am going to be in Southern California for the first few days of the challenge, so will try my best to eat locally here.

I'm asking Eat Local Challenge participants to make a statement of participation for their personal challenges and thought I'd outline mine as well.  My goals for the month are as follows:

1.  What's your definition of local for this challenge?  Local will be anything within 100 miles of where I am.  When traveling, I will do my best to cook with local ingredients.

2.  What exemptions will you claim?

• Coffee from local roasters.
• Yeast.
• Spices when I can't find a local substitute.
• Rice will be purchased from Massa Organics, which is 166 miles from San Francisco.
• When eating out, anything is game at a restaurant that makes a claim of supporting local producers.  I will do my best to eat out only at restaurants that support local producers.
• I will not turn down anything made for me or offered in friendship or love.

3.  What are your goals for the month? To try really integrating a local diet into a social life that doesn't always allow that.  To never make others feel uncomfortable with the choices that I have made for my own diet.  To figure out how to eat locally in a more budget-effective manner.

Announcements: Press + Events

Next time you're at the supermarket or your local co-op, open up a copy of the August/September Fine Cooking.  I was asked to write the "Ask the Expert" column about local eating this issue.  In conjunction with the article, I'll be hosting a web forum on their site for two weeks starting August 11 in which readers can ask questions about eating locally.

Being able to pen a column was really fun, and the response so far has been exciting.

A couple of other quick things while I have your attention:

I will be interviewing Ed George of the Peach Farm tomorrow at the Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market.  The event takes place at 10.30 a.m. in the North Arcade and lasts 30 minutes.  I'd love to see you.

Also, on Monday, August 4, I will be interviewing Jesse Cool, author of Simply Organic and restaurateur, for the Commonwealth Club. Jesse is the force behind Cool Cafe, Flea Street CAfe, jZcool Eater, and CoolEatz Catering.  The interview is for the Commonwealth Club, and the event will take place at the Cubberley Center in Palo Alto.  The event is at 7.00 pm and tickets can be purchased through the Commonwealth Club website.  It would be such a treat to see some friendly faces in Palo Alto!

Have a great weekend, everyone.  May it be filled with heirloom tomato salads, juicy peaches, and sweet corn on the cob!

Eating locally: Possible when eating ethnic food?

The photo above is of a fantastic harissa that I had at lunch today at a Tunisian restaurant near my house called Cafe Zitouna.  Harissa is a hot red pepper paste that's made with chili peppers, garlic and spices.  And this is the best harissa that I've ever tasted.  That, combined with a lamb stew couscous today, made for a fantastic lunch.

Was it made from local ingredients?

Not a chance.

The closest I got with local eating at this meal was that I was supporting a local, small business -- something that I believe is a core principle to eating local.

When it comes to eating locally-sourced ingredients when at restaurants, I really fall down on the job.  If the restaurant serves Californian cuisine, or meat and potatoes-type dishes, you can be sure that I'm tracking down restaurants that source their food locally:  Range, Delfina, A16, Zuni Cafe, etc. 

But I've always had issue with ethnic food.

Long before I was a local food advocate, I was completely obsessed with food and flavors and dishes from other countries.  And while I do a great job of sourcing local food when I am cooking at home, I have a need for, and an obsession with, the strong flavors of ethnic food.  It's not an option for me to cut these out of my life.

As was obvious when I posted "a stellar 10 days of food," many of the foods that I love in this city are neither locally-sourced nor sustainable.  This was pointed out by Aaron in the comments when he asked "How do you reconcile eating locally and sustainably with your love of ethnic food and eateries?"

Here's the honest truth:  I don't think that the SOLE food movement has gone deep enough to truly penetrate the ethnic eateries in California.  There are very few authentic ethnic restaurants that are paying attention to SOLE food. 

Progress is being made in this area.  Thimmakka is a non-profit organization that is working to certify environmentally-conscious Asian restaurants in the Bay Area.  But it's a tough row to hoe -- many ethnic restaurants in California are run by immigrants who are already overwhelmed by what it takes to run a restaurant.  In the meantime, what do those of us who want truly authentic ethnic food do when we prefer locally-sourced?

I don't know the answer, and would love to hear any solutions you've come up with for your own life.

As I see it, my options for my lifestyle include:

1) Reconciling that it's fine to do this because I am supporting locally-owned small businesses.  And I am often supporting immigrant communities which are a crucial part of our society.

2) Only eating vegetarian at ethnic eateries (or pescaterian more likely).  This option makes my heart hurt a bit, but maybe it's what I need to do.

Are there other options?  How do you deal with it?  As someone who cares deeply about supporting local food economies, how should I best reconcile this for myself?

Fair Trade vs. Eat Local?

An article came out in the Chronicle last week that really got under my skin, as it attempted to pit the eat local movement against the fair trade movement.  You can see my response to the article on the Eat Local Challenge blog.

Astonishing ...

This was a fun thing to wake up to this morning.

(thanks, Derrick, for the heads up!)

GP Nabhan at the Eat Local Challenge Blog

I had a really great week for a million reasons.  A very, very busy week, but excellent nonetheless. One of the highlights was receiving an email from Gary Paul Nabhan.  Nabhan wrote a book, Coming Home to Eat, which was the first book to really make me start to seriously consider an eat local diet.  This week's email contained a post submission for the Eat Local Challenge blog which was posted on Thursday.  In some ways, Dr. Nabhan's post complicates the issue of eating locally, as it asks us to consider not only distance, but inputs, ownership, and seed origin among other things. It's sure to begin an interesting conversation -- a conversation which I believe is coming at the right time.

The best part about eating local in Southern California?  Two words: local mangoes.  Normally at this point, I would have a lovely picture to show you, but I have managed to inhale each and every one before I could take a photo.   

End. August.

The end of August finds me in San Francisco, with a belly full of Little Star Pizza and looking forward to September's Eat Local Month.

Are you still wondering what the mystery machine was?  The first guess, Anita's, was correct.  It was a cherry pitter -- a machine that John Lagier showed us on our tour of Lagier Ranches through CUESA's farm tour program.  It was a fascinating tour, and I want to be able to tell you more about it.  But until I get to that, check out Marc's post about visiting the almond orchards and a discussion of the new law that will affect raw almonds. 

On the same day, we visited Hidden Star Orchards, an organic almond, stone fruit and grape orchard who sells at the Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market. Johann Smit and his family have an amazing story, starting with his parents who immigrated from the Netherlands and started a dairy farm on the land where Johann now grows apples.

If you are a Flickr lover, please keep an eye on my photos, as I have been spending quite a bit of time on my flickr site.  I am doing an exciting new project called "365 days" in which I take a photo a day for a year.  I'm on day 22, and it's been a really interesting experience so far.  I am really grateful to the project as it's causing me to have my camera with me most of the time which can only be a good thing. 

I'm leaving tomorrow for a couple weeks in Los Angeles.  The timing of this is interesting, as it's the beginning of Eat Local month.  I am really looking forward to spending time there exploring the local options available to those in Southern California.  I will be going to farmers' markets and working local foods into my family's menus as much as possible.  While I won't be attempting the 100% local foods diet that I have done in the past, I think that being in Southern California while concentrating on eating local will be an interesting spin on a routine that is part of my daily life in San Francisco.  The energy of the Eat Local Challenge is always such an exciting thing, and it continues to be a very invigorating part of my life.  Thanks to all of you who support it, or at least tolerate my talking about it fairly regularly.

Have a fun and safe Labor Day weekend!

Photo taken in San Francisco at August Street and Union Street, August 29, 2007.   

September 2007 Eat Local Challenge

Those of you who have been reading for a while know that the Eat Local Challenge is my baby.  It's where my passion lies, and I have had a great time participating in and helping to build a tremendous community around eating locally.  I've just posted a list of 16 ways that you can participate in the September 2007 Eat Local Challenge on the ELC blog.  Check it out, and consider whether you'd like to take part!

Buy Local (Books)

Fellow blogger Noelle at the Daily Tannenbaum has a very poignant post about the closing of her parents' independent bookstore in Wyckoff, New Jersey.  Yet another reminder that our buy local efforts can go so much further than just food.  I find that when most people choose to start paying attention to buying local food that their purchases in every aspect of their life are questioned ... but this post is a great reminder of why we need to continue to question every purchase.

In the past year, almost every publisher has released at least one book about the importance of buying locally for the sake of the environment and the economy. It would be a shame if they don't make the connection that they have the power to help prevent independent bookstores from closing, and keep these vital community businesses alive. With pricing and terms that would allow independents to compete with chains, it would prevent the ever centralization of book distribution and allow local businesses to stay in business. This would be good for communities, individuals and the publishing industry itself. Unfortunately, it's too late for the people of Wyckoff, NJ, because starting October 1st, they will no longer be be able to buy their books from a local retailer.