Other locavore bloggers (Living in a Local Zone, Northeast Kindom Localvores) are starting to post about signing up for One Local Summer. My first thought was, it’s a no-brainer, of course I’ll do it, I’m eating locally anyway.
Then I thought a little more. I’m already eating locally all the things that I can get locally. I’m already sharing my recpes for those foods. If I shared recpes through One Local Summer, by the time vegetables were ripe here in the northeast, they’d be past in the warmer rest of the country, so my recipes wouldn’t be of help anymore. My blog stats show that people routinely find recipes here by searching for combinations of vegetables. (They also find that I got those vegetables in the same week but couldn’t think of a single tasty way to put them together.)
My biggest hurdle to participating in One Local Summer is the sheer number of foods that are unavailable locally but central to my diet. Potatoes and corn are the only starches grown locally. Beans show up in my CSA share or at the farmers market just a few weeks during the summer. I’d be stuck for June. Even for August and September, I’d be paring foods not based on what worked well together, but based on what would allow me to make a totally-local meal.
The stuck-for-June bit is a bit of an overstatement. Dairy and eggs are also local sources of protein, but how many variants on vegetable-potato-egg fritata to other One Local Summer participants really want to see, anyway?
Go ahead, convince me to sign up anyway.
May 15, 2009 at 4:44 am |
Sign up! I’m a New Englander, and one of the best parts for me is seeing how people eat local in places where it is *not* easy to do so. Sure when its 80* in June in the warmer climates and the growing goes on for months, its easier… for us, the challenge is even more post-worthy. Give it a go, for what you can do and feels right.
With that said, it shouldn’t feel like a chore, you know? If the challenge aspect makes the process and cooking pressure-filled, that’s not good either…. I guess I’m saying do what is right for you, not what might seem “interesting” to the other participants.
May 15, 2009 at 1:28 pm |
I participated in the October Eat Local Challenge last fall, and even though I was already trying to eat locally as much as I could, it was a great learning experience. I was able to find new food sources as well as expanding my menu into food choices and combinations I wouldn’t have necessarily thought of when I had everything available to me. The One Local Summer challenge is very different in that it’s only one meal a week (what a breeze!) but much more strict for that meal (only oil, salt, and spices are allowed to be non-local).
It’s one meal a week! Go for it!
May 19, 2009 at 11:00 pm |
Thanks MangoChild and Annika for your comments and encouragement. You’ve got my arm nearly twisted. I’ll see what conclusion my husband comes to.