Wow, I'm doing it without trying, which is great for the day before I'm supposed to start trying!

Breakfast was an egg, some cheese and a roll, all local ( non local flour, but locally made ).

Lunch was brussels sprouts and leeks from the yard, and my snack is a tiny watermelon I discovered while I was removing the vines. Not bad!

The plan for dinner is a couple of burgers and some cookies Mom made. Mom-made desserts are, by their nature, sacred and therefore exempt from all attempts at green, health, or local.

Leeks

I got some wheatflour from a semi-local source, but had a problem getting it home safely ( the cooler leaked, it got soaked. Into the compost... )

Tonight we shall have leeks and carrots from the garden, a steak, and perhaps some corn pudding.

Leeks based on the "Slow Mediterranean Kitchen", Paula Wolfert , page 55

Stuff; 1 heavy pot with a good lid
some parchment or foil
a spoon
a larger bowl
a smaller bowl
a knife
a stove
a timer
a cutting surface

Parts;
2 pounds of leeks, trimmed, rinsed and ready to go, cut into chunks.
2TBS olive oil
2 carrots, chopped up some
2 smallish onions, chopped up.
1/4c olive oil
1 t sugar
1 half lemon or 2T vinegar
1/4c barley, soaking in a bowl of water.

First; chop up the leeks and let them soak in tepid water in the bowl. This helps them plump and helps them let go of grime. Drain them well, you don't want to add more water to the pot.


Sautee the onions and carrots in the oil. When they take color, check the leeks over for dirt, and layer them on top of the onions and carrots. Sprinkle the sugar on top.
Pop the lid on with the foil underneath to tighten the seal, lower the heat to med/low, and set the timer for 20 mins. It's supposed to be pretty dry, but if you need to, add a tablespoon of water from the barley bowl.



When the timer dings, drain the barley and lay it in. Add salt and pepper as you see fit. Put the foil and lid back on, and cook another 20 mins.

Remove from the heat and add the lemon or vinegar. Let the dish cool, and serve.
............
This is not a faithful adaptation. The original calls for rice and slightly different proportions.

I would have liked more barley.

The vinegar made the dish.

I will add potatos and turn this into soup if it's not a hit as it is.

Oats and oatcakes

In the great quest for grains, I have either struck gold or dross. Not sure yet which.

The local Amish market sells bulk goods. He gets them from a vendor and repackages everything. The question is; are these “middleman” products or “factory” products? Some of the stuff seems pretty well straight from the mill, but I'm thinking factory.

I bought oatmeal anyhow because we need it, and I figure supporting a vendor instead of a superchain is one step up, at the least, and if I am lucky the mill is something I can rely on over time.

Sadly, the place we used to rely on got bought out by a “health food superchain”, and the only grain mills I can find around here are for animal feed only.

Crock Pot oats

If it is hot out, do this on the porch. You won't heat the house, and the pot won't have to work as hard.

2 c whole or “old fashioned” cut oats

6 c water,

or 4 c water and 2 of fruit juice

or meat broth

or vegetable broth

Peppercorns, cinnamon, or bay leaves depending on liquid selected.

Toss it all in the pot and set to low. Go to sleep.

Wake up, stir, and serve.

We make the leftovers into oatcakes

Cool oats

Warm frying pan

Warm holding oven or food dehydrator

Sheets for oven or dehydrator

Dollop oats onto pan, flip carefully when the top loses it's gloss

Set the other side, then place on a baking sheet or rack

Place the sheet in the oven on low overnight.

Keep in an airtight container. Excellent with sauteed leeks, leftover stew, and the like.

It looks like local eating in Central Jersey will be both a huge plus and a huge problem. Poultry, beef, eggs, milk products and cheese are all available on demand from within 20 miles of my front door.

None go through a factory process except the chickens. We prefer the ones from another vendor, but those are from Iowa.

We can get chickens from a local producer but I don't have the best feeling about the place. They don't have innards or other signs of processing would which make me comfortable. They seem to sell more pies and imported delicacies than their own poultry, which makes me nervous. The quail eggs I got from them were not as good as hoped either.

It will be easy enough in September, but how about December? Will I be one of those throwbacks hastily canning apples on the off-chance that we will still be able to tolerate them come May?

Are there hothouses around here that grow lemons?

There's Pennsylvania on one side, with the Amish vendors coming to us ( one middleman, no factory, often home-grown ), and Manhattan on the other ( huge ethnic population, lots of small producers and

suppliers, but using outsources for ingredients ). We have several pick your own type places, some farm markets, and some boutique style producers and processors, which are welcome in our plan if not in our budget.

I have three weeks to figure out the solution for year-rounding rationally.

So if the rules are so loose, what in heck are we doing?

We have allowed ourselves a lot more leeway than most of the food bloggers we have seen who are also involving themselves in this.

If so much is acceptable, from spices to what's already in the pantry, from bananas to road food, are we actually making any changes?

Yes and no.

We are agreed that our diet and approach to it could be better. We agree on a general plan of attack. We have an overall concept of preferred foodway, and have been working towards it or some time.

We will be steering more and more over the next years, with the Locavore Challenge as a kickstart, to something we call "European Macrobiotic". The idea is to eat traditional, pre-New World foods as they occurred in Western Europe until relatively recent times, and as our ancestors would have approached them.

We will intentionally remove almost all factory foods, try to limit the junk we rely on, go for more home cooked, planned meals rather than "fridge diving", and generally aim for a less crappy diet with more awareness overall.

Our general plan of attack is so fluid so we can stick with it. Our recipes are either off the cuff, craves, or from some neat old European cookbooks which have been coming in to print over the last years.

One of my favorites of the very early cookbooks is Das Buch Von Guter Spise, "the Book of Good Spice" which is a convent cookbook from Germany.
I like the fact that I can see the original recipe, decide if I even want to deal, and go from there.
The foods called for are not all available, much less to our preferences. However, some of the seasoning combinations are revelations, and the food is designed to be simple, pleasant, and reasonable to prepare. Unfortunately, it isn't organized like a modern cookbook, so it's a pain to navigate. The big risk to using foreign cookbooks of any age is when the translator changes the recipe to suit their own perceptions, but doesn't explain that decision to the reader. We might never know, when we are getting bilked.

My favorite modern cookbook is the Zuni Cafe Cookbook. It can be fussy, but since I am searching more for inspiration on flavor combinations, it works really well. The recipes range from very simple to quite elaborate, the ingredients as well. The flavors and successes from it have been bringing me back to the book more and more.


The Big Guy has been referring to Florence Lin's Chinese Regional Cookbook. It's a very practical layout, clear and simple to find recipes in. If you enjoy reading cookbooks for color, this isn't the one. If you just want to find a recipe, it's great.

More on the rules, if you can call them that

More on the rules, such as rules can exist in my life

we will eat out. There are three main restaurants we use in the area, which are home cooking at it's earthiest.

“the fish place” is a man, a van, and a pan. He goes to Fulton, he brings food home. Sometimes there are fries, sometimes salad. He's good people, and he's very good at fish.

“the lutong” is a Phillipino lunch spot, not healthy, not terribly popular, but solid home cooking. The young men who work there speak some English, which helps, but isn't really essential. The food is earthy, no branded ingredients are involved. Once, I got a piranha for lunch. It is nice to be on top of the food chain!

:”the pizzeria” is one of the originals. Only open for a couple of hours a day, they put out the most wonderful pie. The ingredients are factory, but it's all about that brick oven. Sometimes we act all crazy and get a stomboli instead of a pie. Horrors! ( in NJ, almost all pie ingredients are factory ) I think that's all that's on the menu anyhow.

We might find ourselves in other places, but those are the three we aim for, that we think of as an extension of our own kitchen, and of our home.

ruminations

Here I sit, eating my recently adopted breakfast, and contemplating the utter insanity of what I am about to subject us to.

Are we ready to eat local? Can we get food? Will we go batshit insane?

I already get meat and eggs, butter and cheese. That's fine. But flour? Oatmeal? I just ate the last packet of “fine imported Irish” junk food with extra sugar, and I liked it. No more? What's the big guy going to do to me if he doesn't get his wheatabix?

So. The rules.

Most locavores are going for 100 miles. I'm not. I'm going to go by “1 middleman or On my way”. Fair Trade will fill in some gaps.

If I know the middleman and s/he knows the grower, it's in.

If I pass it on my way to someplace I am already going, it's in.

No out of my way trips or special trips, but if I am headed out of the area, anything local on the way is in. If a friend is coming this way and can get it cleanly in their area, it is in as well. My maple syrup might come from Massachusetts, but the farmer is someone I see a couple of times a year. I think that's reasonable.

Spices are exempt. Those have been imported for over a thousand years, they have a special place in life. I'm not going to forgo them. I doubt we will run out any time soon, but eventually, I will have to buy something. Saffron is most likely first to run out, nutmeg soon after.

Coffee is exempt for sanity's sake. I know that that's the one which would break us, so I'm not going to be a pain about it. We need to be able to do this for the long haul. Coffee made at home from fair-trade beans somehow bothers me less than grownup shakes for $6.

Anything already in the pantry; Im not going to let something go bad just because it isnt suitable for the project. I'm not trying to do a 1 month trick here, I'm trying to eat real food. We won't replace things, but we sure will use what we have. Splenda is in, but not for long!

The rules are fluid. I'm not trying to prove anything to anyone, I'm trying to feed myself and the Big Guy while not going insane, and find local-ish sources for high quality, non corporate foods at the same time.

Things I know I'm going to miss a lot;

Water. I need to set up a water still that works off of something that's already using heat. No more bottles. No way to use the tap safely. This one is the challenge. I might go insane and build a largescale solar still, but that's hard to wrap my head around right now.

Flavors for water. I like my iced tea packets, but boy are they wasteful. I also like lemon. Those are guaranteed over 100 miles.

Wondra. I love this stuff. It's a sure thing for a nice gravy or crust. We only have ¼ can left. I'll figure something out.

Sugar. Yeah, I know. But honey doesnt work well in everything, and one of my regular cooking-victims is allergic to it.

Oils. Historically, lard was the answer. Kill a hog once a year for it's fat, and be careful with it. That bacon can meant something in past days. It's not happening in this house. We still have a little olive oil left. I'll likely purchase some from a local family importer, fair trade has to have some room in our lives. It's a luxury item, yes, butter would often do well, but better family farm someplace far away than bulk factory supply.

Nuts. We eat a lot of pecans, almonds, peanuts and cashews. How sad.. Butternuts and walnuts are common trees, but the nuts are very hard to get in this area. Black walnuts can be $20 a pound!

The list is already depressing, so I'm stopping here for now.

Gearing up to the locavore challenge

Just another food blog

this is my kitchen. Huge, luxe, old school, it's perfect. Too perfect. We have settled in and made such a mess we don't know if we can eat our way out of it.

( there will be a photo here soon )

There are only two of us ( plus the very rare guest ) and we have very different tastes in food. Oh, the main compatibilities are in place, of course. We both love meat, butter, eggs, we both love sweets and chocolate, cookies, pizza of course. We will fight for the last ( non breaded ) hot wing if it's particularly good. But he won't touch “things that food eats”; “things that grew in dirt”. He hates vegetables and only tolerates fruit.

I don't love vegetables, but I do eat them out of a sense of duty, and sometimes because I find them genuinely good. Onions are the exception. They count as meat.

Unfortunately, I am a bit of a packrat. A suburban home allows for things to accumulate, until one day you enter the home and realize that not only is there no place to sit, but no place to put a sack of groceries.

Combine this with our preference for eating locally ( along our own very personally chosen rules ) and you have a bit of a mess. Either not enough to cook or too much in the fridge to reasonably eat.

This blog will randomly document special projects, cookbooks, inspirations, new sources found, successes, failures, meals in, meals out, and who knows what else.

Let's see where we wind up.