Dark Days Local Challenge

On Sunday, we had a respectable Palm Sunday Dinner featuring a smoked ham from Ox Hollow Farm in Roxbury (obtained at the Fairfield Winter Market).

The ham was absolutely delicious. I'd intended to use some apple cider as the liquid in the roasting pan, but none of my cider was defrosted. Time to improvise. I did have some pineapple juice in the pantry, but it turned out that it had expired long ago so it was going down the drain and not on my prize ham. Keep looking. Believe it or not, we had a mason jar of maple tree sap in the fridge, a gift from the Sisters (they know I love sweet tea--a hot beverage, ready around the midpoint between sap and syrup), so I used that. It was perfect-o-mundo!

I knew it!

Over the course of the past year, I've been replacing white sugar with honey or maple syrup whenever possible, partly because sugar's not local and partly because of that diet I've been on.

When my partner invited me to try some Stevia, I protested saying I don't want food to taste sweet, I want it to be sweet. It turns out that my body and subconscious might have known something that my conscious mind did not. According to a study at Purdue University, when the tongues tastes sweet, the body is looking for the caloric reward and may compensate by eating even more to make up for the input mismatch.

Wooo hooo! One for food. Zero for edible food-like substances.

Makes you wonder about the other deconstructed/reformulated ingredients on any given label.

Today's forage and challenge meal

What a luxurious life I lead; today I had to chose between two farmer's markets. The CitySeed Year-Round Market in New Haven is on once a month and today was it's day. And of course, the Westport Indoor Market (in Fairfield) is still going strong.

With lots more to choose from, I took home:
- herbed soft cheese and a quart of lamb Bolognese from Sankow's Beaver Brook Farm, Lyme CT
- spuds and parsnips from Riverbank Farm, Roxbury, CT
- littleneck clams from Westport Aquaculture, Westport, CT

I went a few doors down to The Pantry for my loaf of Wave Hill French Country Bread. The Wave Hill folks missed this week, but are expected to be back next week.

We went on to New Morning in Woodbury and rounded out our shopping there:
- lettuce from Two Guys From Woodbridge
- eggs from Stoneridge Farm, Bethlehem, CT
and some other items of organic but unknown origins

And the Winter Dark Days challenge meal was, of course, spaghetti and white clam sauce. The Westport Aquaculture clams were outstanding!

NOTES:
- The next and final CitySeed Year-Round Market date is Saturday, April 19, 2008. In May, they begin their regular weekly season.
- The Westport Indoor Market (in Fairfield) continues every Saturday through April.

Wheat Futures

I'm still trying to decide if this means it will get harder or easier for me to find local wheat.

The Meatrix

There's a well done parody animation about factory farming called The Meatrix. I thought I was the last to see this, but apparently, there are lots of folks who still haven't.

Cultivating An Organic Connecticut Conference

This Saturday (March 8) is the CT NOFA Cultivating An Organic Connecticut Conference. It's from 8:30 AM - 4:45 PM at Windsor High School, Windsor, CT.

They called and invited me to be on a panel, but alas, I have other plans this weekend. Nonetheless, it looks like it should be a very interesting event.

Non Local Clean Up Progress

Yikes! Where does the time go?!

My plan to finish up all the freezer and pantry non-local fare turned out to be a non-event. The only thing in the freezer that isn't local is one Big Y whole chicken. The pantry is filled with predominantly carbohydrates and I am still keeping to a moderate food plan, so I'm certainly not going to finish up these things before the season. Most will probably run out of shelf before they see the light of day.