Dinner with the locavores

Nothing worse than a convert...and we have found religion. Can we get an amen from the foodies?

What is a locavore...well wikipedia has a useful entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_foodhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_food)
A locavore is someone who eats food grown or produced locally or within a certain radius such as 50, 100, or 150 miles. The locavore movement encourages consumers to buy from farmers’ markets or even to produce their own food, with the argument that fresh, local products are more nutritious and taste better. Locally grown food is an environmentally friendly means of obtaining food, since supermarkets that import their food use more fossil fuels and non-renewable resources.
And according to the wiki gods, locavore was even chosen by New Oxford American Dictionary as the word of the year in 2007.

In Santa Cruz, local food is basically the way it is. You know those strawberries you bought at Kroger - they came from Watsonville. And probably the lettuce too. So when its fresher, easier, and, lets face it for grad students, often cheaper to buy it from the farmer at the market, it's not a hard sell. If the Santa Cruz Farmers Market was our baptism, then our CSA box was our first communion. CSA (Community Support Agriculture) is a concept where you buy a share in a farm ahead of time. Then for the whole growing season, you get a box of fresh produce. We belonged to a wonderful CSA called Two Small Farms (http://www.twosmallfarms.com/). What a great experience; we ate all kinds of things we never dreamed of thanks to the box and helpful recipes. Elena was just a year old and wean onto sauted fava beans and organic strawberries. We learned that the farmer workers were legal and had benefits and healthcare (and weren't migrant because of the long growing season, they were able to live in one place). The only bad thing is that strawberries have been ruined forever. (sort of like the Dutch and cheese...)

We took a little break from the local food movement in Europe (excepting the cheese and tulips, of course). But came back for our confirmation in Blacksburg. We've been lucky to fall into a place where we can get wonderful local foods...we buy local grass feed/pasture raised beef, chicken, eggs, pork, turkey and lamb from Shadowchase Farm and Weathertop Farm. Crowes Nest Farm keeps us in the berries. And the climate is perfect for everything from peaches to apples to blueberries. This year we even put in our first garden since Santa Cruz (more on that later, but the squash have already taken over). It's become very important to us to support our local farmers, help preserve open spaces and farm lands, eat as much 'organic' (what a loaded word these days!), and help elena (and soon dos) know where their food comes from. Jake and I both firmly believe that sustainability is not just a fad, but a responsibility.

Last weekend when Dinny first arrived, we made a Sunday dinner. Almost every in the meal was regional...except the sugar, celery & carrots, and wine. The flour was ground in North Carolina.

We had Herb (our name for all thing poultry) a pasture raised chicken from Weathertop Farm (http://www.weathertopfarm.com/) that we picked up the Shannon Family ourselves. Pop it into a ziplock and they freeze quite nicely. Herb was cooked in Schlemmy (our Schlemmertopf German Clay baker - possibly one of our most used wedding gift from my great Aunt Jeannie). Did you know that you can just put a frozen whole chicken in the thing and two hours later is it falling off the bone and looking like this?

Amazing.

We had salad from the garden and a medley of yellow squash and snap peas. All from our garden.


Dessert was a cherry galette. The cherries were from the next county over - sadly, it was the last weekend of cherry season, and I just figured it out. I will not make that mistake next year. This was our only opportunity for cherry dessert.


I'm in love with the galette. It was made from the Martha Stewart pate sucree recipe, mounded with cherries tossed with toasted almonds and a bit of sugar, then baked up. Wow. I made another one with blueberries two days later. Basically, I could eat just about anything wrapped in pate sucree.

So come on over. We'll feed you up good!