We're Lucky to Have a Co-op!

Last night at Just Food Co-op a few of us sat around talking about Barbara Kingsolver's book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Kingsolver and her family spent a year growing their own food or trying as much as possible to purchase it from local producers. She mentions her local farmers' market as one great source, and clearly enjoyed getting to know the people she was buying her food from. But she didn't mention having a local co-op.

People all over the U.S. are excited about the notion of eating more locally -- to lessen the fuel burden of cross-country food transportation, to enjoy a sense of connection, season and place in relation to their food, and so on -- but in many areas it seems people depend on searching out and going directly to farmers to find their local products. Not that there's anything wrong with that itself, but it can take more energy and dedication than most of us have to seek out these local producers and buy from them individually. It makes it much easier when a local store or market, like Just Food, does that research and legwork and brings a variety of local foods to one easy location -- and provides a place where those local producers can sell their products, helping them stay in business.

We're lucky to live in one of the areas (MN-WI) where co-ops are most prevalent. I hadn't realized that in some regions they are not at all common. We're also fortunate that Just Food has a real commitment to supporting local farmers and producers, since some co-ops and natural food stores, while focusing on organically grown food, don't (yet) make local food a priority.

On another locavore blog, people were recently discussing how they find the local food they eat, and the fact that it can be quite difficult. Here's what I wrote:

I foresee that our local co-op will be my major source of local food throughout the winter, though our little farmers' market, which closes regular operations about now, does offer an occasional indoor winter market. The co-op is pretty committed to supporting local providers, so if there is something reasonable I'm looking for that they don't have in stock, I imagine they would have a good network for tracking it down, if it's available. If they weren't here, it would be a very different story. I "heart" my co-op!

And I do!

Local Food in My Kitchen This Week

In my sidebar I keep a running list of locally grown or produced food currently in my kitchen. Since some people may be reading my blog posts as aggregated elsewhere, they won't see what's in the sidebar, like my quote of the week and this list. So I'll try to remember to include those items in my posts at least some of the time. And for you aggregate-readers, remember to stop in and see the full site sometimes.

So, this week in my kitchen you'd find:

• New potatoes and green beans, from last week's trip to the farmer's market. Gotta use up those beans!
  
• Jam made from strawberries from Lorence's U-pick
  
• Bread from the Brick Oven bakery (but purchased at the co-op)
  
• Cucumbers and tomatoes from the garden
• Milk, yogurt, butter and cheese from Minnesota and Iowa dairies, from the co-op
  
• Organic eggs from Owatonna, MN, from the co-op
• Rainbow chard, green onions and a small melon, all marked as local at the co-op
• Salsa Lisa (a staple in my kitchen) - made in Minneapolis
  
• Callister Farm free-range chicken (boneless chicken breast) from West Concord, MN, from the co-op

Some of these items invite a discussion of what should be considered local food. Bread, for example. Wheat isn't grown around here that I'm aware of, though quite a bit of it comes from the Dakotas, which are traditionally two of the top wheat-producing states. I'm not a hard-liner. If the raw ingredients aren't readily grown here, I see plenty of "local" value in transporting them here and adding economic value to them by turning them into staples like bread that are consumed right here. So if it's from the Quality Bakery or the Brick Oven or other local bakeries, or if it's cereal made at Malt-O-Meal, it passes for local in my mind.

Getting Adventurous With Chard (and Cellists)

I missed yesterday's farmers' market, as my younger daughter and I had a chance to attend a rehearsal of the Minnesota Orchestra with guest cellist Daniel Mueller-Schott, playing Dvorak's Cello Concerto -- one of the most glorious pieces of music ever, and Daniel was phenomenal. Check him out! (I'm listening to his recording of a Bach sonata from his website as I write.) The New York Times recently described him as "the magnetic young German cellist ... a fearless player with technique to burn ... [and a] gorgeous, plush tone." The perhaps hackneyed phrase "caramel tones" kept flitting through my head as I listened to him yesterday.

But I digress.

Having missed the farmers' market, I took myself to the co-op this morning to see what locally-grown goodies would catch my eye. I left the produce aisle with an adorable little muskmelon, a bunch of green onions, and a bunch of beautiful rainbow chard (all yellow stalks in my bunch).

And here's where I confess: I have never before cooked with chard, nor ever eaten it as far as I'm aware. I've admired it for its multi-colored stalks and deep green leaves in the seed catalogs, and I know chard (also known as Swiss chard) was widely recommended as a spinach substitute during the recent spinach safety scare, but this is the first time I've ever bought it. I decided it was high time I did.

Many of the recipes for chard call for chopping it coarsely, removing any large, woody stalks, and sautéing it briefly in olive oil and garlic. It can be used in place of spinach in any cooked recipe, and even eaten raw when the stalks are young and tender. I haven't decided exactly how I'm going to prepare my chard, but I will report back.

The Eat Local Challenge

Just Food Co-op has announced details of the Northfield-area Eat Local challenge:

"The challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to eat 80 percent of your diet from food produced within the region from August 15 through September 15. That includes fruits, vegetables, meats, eggs, milk, ice cream, yogurt, cheeses, bread and anything else produced within the five-state region....

How you divide your percentages is up to you. You may want to measure your 80 percent by product weight or by your food budget. The easiest way might be to make sure four out of five of the items you eat or the ingredients you use are from local sources. No matter which way you do it, your meals will be supporting the local economy, protecting the environment and connecting you with the food and farmers of our region. They may even give you ideas for how to eat more locally during the less productive times of the year.

If you eat mostly local food already, perhaps you could try to eat 100 percent of your food from local sources. Or you may want to eat only foods grown or produced within 60 miles (labeled at Just Food with a green “local” tag). Intimidated by 80%? Try for 50%. We encourage you to challenge yourself."

This is My Garden

This is it... my garden. I've never had a huge garden, and some years I've had no garden at all, but this year what it amounts to is five varieties of tomato and two varieties of cucumber in six pots on the southwest-facing patio of my current residence. Oh, and some parsley, basil and chives in windowsill pots. I've been picking cucumbers and the occasional tomato for a couple of weeks now.

I love eating out of my garden. And I've decided to start eating more sustainably in general. For me, right now, that involves a real commitment to shop regularly at the local farmer's market, to spend more of my grocery dollars at the local co-op, and to let my local supermarket know that I am interested in supporting local produce and other farm products. I'm going to participate in the co-op's Eat Local challenge next month (August 15-September 15), striving to make 80% of my food choices from our five-state area (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and North and South Dakota). I'll share my progress here. I don't mean to be fanatic about it, but I think I can do some good for the local land, the global environment, and the local economy by making some conscious choices about how and what I eat. When it can't be local, at least I'll try to choose organic or minimally processed options.

Eating more fresh, local food necessarily requires preparing it. Along the way I'll share some recipes and menus and musings about food in general.

I don't come new to an interest in this kind of thing, but due to things like my transition from part-time work while my kids were younger to full-time work, plus a divorce and subsequent move to rental property (at least for the next couple of years), I've let it slip. But I've just read Barbara Kingsolver's new book, Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, about her family's experiences eating almost entirely locally in rural Virginia for a year, and I'm all fired up again. So, here goes.

In my kitchen this week:

• New potatoes (white and red) from the farmer's market
• Early zucchini (ditto)
• Low-sugar strawberry jam I made a couple of weekends ago from the flat of local strawberries my older daughter gave me. It's almost more of a sauce, with a 4:1 fruit-to-sugar ratio and no added pectin. It's soft and intensely strawberry-y, and delicious on buttered bread.
  
• 10-grain bread from one of our two local bakeries
• Cucumbers and tomatoes from the garden
• Milk, yogurt, sour cream, butter and cheese from Minnesota and Iowa dairies
• Organic eggs from Owatonna, MN
  

Simple July potato salad:

Boiled and sliced new potatoes, with skins left on
Sliced cucumbers
Newman's Own Oil & Vinegar dressing (a perennial favorite)
Crumbled feta cheese

Gently toss, add some salt & pepper to taste, and that's it.